


palimpsest

by fireinmywoods



Series: palimpsest verse [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-04-13 20:20:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 61,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14120037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireinmywoods/pseuds/fireinmywoods
Summary: “Skip to the point, Jim. The sooner you spit it out, the sooner I can refuse and get back to work.”“It’sreallyno big deal,” Jim says as the door slides closed behind them. “I just need you to come down to Hearth with us…as my husband.”The Enterprise has been sent to negotiate reaccession to the Federation with an isolationist religious group known as the Kindred. While there, Jim notices that some of the children seem to be gravely ill. The problem is, the Kindred practice faith healing and refuse to allow a doctor to be brought in. So Jim does what he does best: he improvises.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! This is my first McKirk fic, and a massive unruly monster it's turned out to be. It's currently about 90% complete and sitting around 36k. Whoops...? I just adore these dweebs. And mission fic. And tropes. God, do I love me a good trope. As this story will make abundantly clear.
> 
> Trek fandom is fairly intimidating to enter, seeing as there's just _so much canon_. I hope you'll forgive or politely correct me if I make any errors.
> 
> Enjoy!

Leonard knows the second Jim walks into medbay that he’s bringing trouble with him. Not the explosive, red alert, _all hands to battle stations_ trouble that persists in seeking them out like a bad penny – oh no, this is the much worse, much more dangerous kind of trouble Jim comes up with all on his own. He’s got that _look_ he gets whenever he’s cooked up some deranged plot and is just tickled pink by his own idiocy.

“Bones!” he says brightly.

“The answer’s ‘no,’ and I’m already pissed at you for asking,” Leonard says, cutting straight to the chase. Medbay’s been swamped all day with crewmen coming in for their annuals, plus the last round of check-ups for everyone who came down with Findolessian pox last week. He doesn’t have time for whatever insanity Jim’s got brewing.

“Denied, and noted.” Jim spares a warm smile for the young ensign perched on the biobed in front of Leonard. “Sorry to interrupt, Ensign Mahmoud.”

“It’s no trouble at all, Captain,” Mahmoud says, with that big-eyed reverential expression so common among the greener crew members whenever they cross Jim’s path. Forget interrupting a physical – the kid probably wouldn’t mind if Jim sliced him open and helped himself to a kidney or two. Anything for his captain.

“It _is_ trouble,” Leonard corrects him, “and I want no part of it. Remind me again, Jim, what exactly was my complete diagnosis after we got you off Dwaa?”

Jim makes a face, but obediently rattles off the final tally. “Open-book pelvic fracture, trauma to the internal pudendal artery, and splenic rupture, leading to both intra- and extraperitoneal hemorrhage and hypovolemic shock.”

“And?” Leonard prompts, frowning slightly at Mahmoud, whose eyes are darting between him and Jim with undisguised interest. He must be looking forward to spilling the gossip on the latest battle of wills between the great Captain Kirk and – whatever Leonard’s reputation is among the crew. _Long-suffering pushover_ , probably.

“And a sprained ankle,” Jim adds reluctantly.

“That’s right. And upon your release from medbay, how long did I tell you – as your personal physician, but more importantly as your CMO, which made this very much an _order_ – to refrain from engaging in any unnecessary stupidity to allow for complete recovery from those very nearly fatal injuries?”

Jim sighs. “Six weeks.”

“And how long has it been?”

“Thirty-four days,” Jim says, “but – ”

“ _Thirty-four days_ ,” Leonard repeats. “Now, I’m just an old country doctor, not one of those math whizzes you’ve got up on the bridge, but it seems to me that thirty-four is somewhat shy of forty-two.”

“I can confirm your calculations,” Jim says. It’s such a pitch-perfect imitation of Spock that Leonard has to bite back a smile, which annoys him all the more. Jim’s at his trickiest when he’s being charming. “Just hear me out, Bones. It’s not even that bad.”

“That’s what you say every time.” Leonard gives Mahmoud his final booster and sends him on his way, savoring the small, petty pleasure of the ensign’s obvious disappointment at missing out on the climax of this little squabble. The rumor mill will just have to make do with an incomplete report for now.

“Funny how hypos don’t seem to hurt any of your other patients,” Jim observes mildly.

“Funny how most grown adults can somehow find the inner strength to tolerate a split second of mild discomfort without throwing a fit,” Leonard says. “Maybe you should ask them for tips.”

This debate clearly isn’t over, so Leonard heads toward his office, away from the prying eyes and ears of patients and his busybody staff. Jim trots along behind him, already launching back into making his case. “Seriously, I promise, no surprises this time. No cliffs, no sandstorms, no creepy mole people – ”

Leonard shudders at the memory.

“ – no vortexes or temporal paradoxes or angry trees. Honestly, by our standards, it’s almost boring.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Leonard says dryly, scanning them into his office. “Skip to the point, Jim. The sooner you spit it out, the sooner I can refuse and get back to work.”

“It’s _really_ no big deal,” Jim says as the door slides closed behind them. “I just need you to come down to Hearth with us…as my husband.”

Leonard stops dead in his tracks, struck by a deep pulse of alarm over the head injury Jim must have sustained planetside. Why the hell didn’t anyone comm him? When it comes to possible TBI, time is of the essence. Jim’s skull could be filling up with blood right this second, though of course there’s also the all-too-feasible possibility that he’s cracked it again. _Six weeks_ without a life-threatening injury, dammit, that’s all Leonard wanted – is that really so much to ask for?

He spins on his heel to face Jim, who’s hovering right behind him with a blithe expression that suggests he has no idea of the danger he’s in.

Several moments pass this way: Leonard staring slack-jawed at Jim, half expecting him to drop dead any second, while Jim just stands there looking back at him all expectant. Hopeful. Like a dog waiting on a treat.

“Jim,” Leonard says finally – real slow and patient, to help him follow along through the brain bleed – “have you lost your goddamned mind?”

Jim’s mouth twitches up on one side in what’s either a smile or the first quivering onset of central facial palsy. Leonard reaches for the tricorder at his belt. “Nah. You just don’t know the full story yet.”

“Which is?” Leonard asks, deciding it’s best to keep him talking so he can evaluate his coherency while he scans him.

Jim’s smile fades as quickly as it came. “There’s something wrong with the kids. We spotted at least two of them with some kind of rash, or sores or something, all over their hands. And it’s not just the rash. They’re _sick_ , you can tell just looking at them. But the problem is – Bones, if you don’t get that thing away from me – ” He swats at the scanner hovering by his ear – gently, though, as if by some miracle he’s actually absorbed one of Leonard’s many lectures about not damaging valuable medical equipment for the sake of a tantrum.

More likely, he’s just playing nice while he tries to wheedle Leonard into going along with this harebrained scheme of his.

“So the problem is, the Kindred don’t believe in modern medicine. Or medicine at all, really. They think most sickness is an illusion, like some kind of moral failing, I guess.”

Outrage wells hot and frothing in Leonard’s chest, but when he opens his mouth to unleash it, Jim holds up a hand to stave him off.

“I know, I _know_. But it’s part of their belief system, and trust me, they don’t take kindly to having it challenged. They freaked out on me when I offered to bring a doctor. You wouldn’t believe the amount of bowing and scraping I had to do just to keep them from kicking us out right then and there. I don’t like it either, but the brass really want Hearth reintegrated into the Federation. This isn’t a hill we can afford to die on.”

Leonard pinches the bridge of his nose. “All right. You’ve laid out your problem. Now explain how you’ve somehow made it _my_ problem.”

That troublesome little half-smile is back. “There’s no way in hell they’ll let us bring a doctor down…but they did want to meet my husband.”

“Me,” Leonard says flatly.

“Obviously.” Jim looks at him like _he’s_ the crazy one for not immediately appreciating the brilliance of this plan. “It’s the perfect way to get you down there. The Kindred are – I mean, the name kind of gives it away, but they’re _really_ family-oriented. Their whole society is set up in this extended family hierarchy, from the Penitent Mother at the top all the way down. They don’t care about rank or Starfleet or politics or any of that, but family is everything. You get married young, and then you get to work growing the family. If you’re not paired off and making babies by your mid-twenties, there must be something _really_ wrong with you, and by our age? Forget it. So we knew they weren’t going to take unmarried adults seriously, which is why I brought Sulu and Aaronson with me…and why I wore this.” He raises his left hand, displaying a gold band on his ring finger. It’s just a touch big on him, and strangely worn-looking in a way that pings a warning in the part of Leonard’s brain primed to distrust Jim’s idiotic plots.

“Where the hell’d you get that?”

Jim waves the question off, which just confirms Leonard’s suspicion that he’s better off not knowing. “After we had the whole blow-up about the doctor issue, we tried to smooth things over by talking family. Sulu told them about Ben and Demora, Aaronson talked about her husband and their kids – did you know she has _eight_ kids? Triplets and two sets of twins, all with K names, which…that’s kind of weird, right? Don’t tell her I said that. Anyway, by the time they got to me, I’d remembered that I _just happened_ to be married to the very same man I wanted to bring down in the first place. Isn’t that convenient?”

“It’s something, all right,” Leonard mutters.

“I didn’t even have to suggest bringing you down,” Jim says, sounding disgustingly pleased with himself. “It was actually their idea. Special invitation from the Penitent Mother herself.”

“And these yokels are gonna roll out the welcome mat for two married _men_?” Leonard’s not buying it. He grew up in Bumfuck Nowhere, Georgia – he knows from religious hicks. “I thought you said they were all about procreation and child-rearing.”

Jim shrugs. “It didn’t seem to matter. They’re excited to meet you.” He pauses. “I think. Kind of hard to tell with these guys. Anyway, they’re fine with it. You, I mean. Being a man.”

If Leonard rolls his eyes any harder, he’s going to strain something. “How gracious of them.”

“Look, the point is, we have to get you down there with us, and this is the easiest way. We need you, Bones. Those kids…” He shakes his head. “You’ll understand when you see them. I don’t know what it is, but it’s bad. If we don’t help them, no one will.”

It just had to be kids. Jim’s the softest touch there is when it comes to kids. Hell, he’s a soft touch for most any sob story he gets wind of, but when there are kids involved, there’s no reasoning with him.

Leonard gets it, he does. He may not like to dwell on the _why_ of it, but he gets it. Most of the time he’s just proud of Jim, and glad for him – glad that he can maybe find a little bit of healing in helping these kids, protecting them, playing the hero he never had.

Of course, most of the time Jim isn’t dragging him out to perform holy matrimony for some backwater religious cult like a goddamn circus act.

Jim, damn him, has always been able to spot weakening resolve from a light-year away. He goes in for the kill, laying an imploring hand on Leonard’s shoulder and looking him right in the eye with an expression the devil himself couldn’t say no to. “Please, Bones. I need you on this. It’s the only way.”

“I just bet,” Leonard says sourly.

Oh, he believes it’s a real strategy, maybe even the best one available to them. But he’d have to be blind and stupid – stupider than this stupid-ass plan – not to see the gleeful sparkle in Jim’s eyes. The little shit is _loving_ this.

He holds out for another few seconds, because sometimes he likes to amuse himself by pretending he has an inch of backbone where Jim’s concerned – and then, when he can’t stomach that pleading expression one instant longer, he caves. “I regret this already,” he says with a sigh, mentally plotting out the adjustments he’ll have to make to the shift schedule while he’s away. “You owe me big time for this one.”

Jim grins ear to ear and slaps him on the back, typically boisterous in victory. “Just put it on my tab.”

+

There’s a small crowd waiting for them outside the transporter room, because of course there is.

Sulu and Aaronson are actually supposed to be there, since they’re going back to Hearth with them, so they’re excused from Leonard’s ire. The same goes for Scotty and the other engineer manning the console, who are only doing their jobs.

The rest of these idiots are just here for the show, and Leonard will personally ensure that every one of them pays for it one way or another – up to and including his traitorous head nurse, who insisted on tagging along to “see Dr. McCoy off,” as if she has ever before felt the need to do so in all the years they’ve been working together.

At least Spock is nowhere to be seen. Say what you will about him – and Leonard’s said plenty – but he takes his responsibilities seriously. He’s in charge while Jim’s away, so however much he may have wanted to personally observe Leonard’s suffering, he’s stayed dutifully on the bridge, where half these looky-loos ought to be.

Jim claps his hands together. “All right, people, let’s get this show on the road. Who’s got the good doctor’s ring?”

A red-shirted Arcturian darts out from the crowd and holds out a gold-colored band that looks remarkably similar to Jim’s, wear and all. Leonard doesn’t want to know, he really doesn’t.

“I already have a ring,” he says, though he recognizes even as he’s saying it that he’s wasting his breath.

“Yeah, a _pinky_ ring,” Jim says. “We need you to look more respectable salt-of-the-earth married man, less old-timey criminal.”

Leonard scowls at him. “It’s a family heirloom, jackass.” As he damn well knows.

“Well, so are these,” Jim says, examining his own ring with the intent fascination of a raccoon that’s gotten hold of something shiny. “In a manner of speaking.”

Leonard _does not want to know_.

The ensign thrusts the ring at him, and Leonard takes it with ill grace, removing his granddaddy’s ring and sticking it in his pocket before sliding the gold band onto the next finger over. It fits surprisingly well – almost unnervingly so, given its uncertain provenance. He flexes his hand, adjusting to the feel of it. It’s been a long damn time since he’s worn anything on that finger.

Beside him, Jim is busy waving his own adorned hand around for the crew’s appraisal, preening peacock that he is. He stretches the other hand out in Leonard’s direction. “Shall we, _husband_?” He wriggles his fingers in childish invitation, which – in a last-ditch effort to pretend he’s got a shred of dignity left to his name – Leonard refuses to accept.

An audible wave of discontent ripples through their audience.

“Aww, c’mon, Bones,” Jim says, in that cajoling tone he only brings out when he knows he’s won but is still gamely playing through the final moves. “How’re they supposed to believe we’re married if you won’t even hold my hand?”

Leonard scowls harder, knowing Jim will perfectly interpret the meaning. _You’re pushing it, kid._

Jim just smirks in response, which is no less than Leonard expected; “pushing it” is about as succinct a description of Jim Kirk as ever there was. He wiggles his fingers again, reaches out a little farther, until finally Leonard huffs and grabs his hand, carelessly lacing their fingers together and widening his eyes defiantly at him. _There, happy now?_

“Looking good, gentlemen,” says Sulu.

“Mazel tov,” says Aaronson, who in Leonard’s opinion is getting a bit big for her Starfleet-issue britches.

“Good luck, boss,” says Christine. “In sickness and in health, right? Boy, are you going to have your hands full with _that_ one.”

Leonard glowers at her, and at the rest of the spectators giggling and whispering like a bunch of gossipy old ladies. Not for the first time since coming onboard this flying circus, his commitment to non-maleficence is being sorely tried.

He turns back to Jim, expecting to see him showboating again over this latest victory, but his grievance dies in his throat when he finds Jim smiling at him. It’s not the smug, self-satisfied grin from before, but a genuine happy little smile, the kind that gives him eye crinkles. His hand fits comfortably in Leonard’s, warm and strong.

“Thank you,” Jim says softly, _sincerely_ , and Leonard feels all the fight drain out of him at once.

God damn it.

“I hate this,” he grumbles, but his heart’s not in it and he’s sure Jim can tell.

Jim squeezes his hand. “I know you do,” he says, and keeps on smiling.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet the Kindred, Leonard is thoroughly creeped out, and Jim rewrites history.

Jim is fidgety as their guides escort them from the beam-down point to the Kindred’s audience hall. He keeps playing with his too-big ring, toying with it, spinning it around his finger, and just generally making it painfully obvious that he only slapped it on for the first time today.

“Quit fiddling with the damn thing,” Leonard hisses at him. “It’s bad enough you’re dragging me into this nonsense. Least you could do is try to act natural.”

“It feels weird,” Jim says under his breath, childish as ever, but he does leave off messing with the ring, at least.

Sulu laughs. “I’ll bet it does. Never thought I’d see anyone make an honest man of you, Captain.”

“Who, me? Never,” Jim says, all gleaming bravado and a sideways grin.

Leonard rolls his eyes.

Up ahead of them on the path, one of their guides glances back over her shoulder with a furrowed brow, probably wondering what all the chatter is about. Leonard can’t stop himself from tensing up under the sudden scrutiny – so much for acting natural – but before he can get too anxious about it, Jim leans over and presses his smiling lips to Leonard’s cheek, just grazing the side of his mouth.

Leonard freezes, his heart tripping over itself in his chest. Did Jim just – is he actually – ?

Jim pulls away, and somehow that drives the sensation home, like Blumberg’s sign, a kind of rebound tenderness. That really happened. Jim really just _kissed_ him, right here in front of the guide and Sulu and Aaronson and God and everybody.

The guide tuts and turns back around, evidently satisfied.

“Aww,” Sulu says, very quietly.

“With all due respect, sir,” Aaronson pipes up, “you two are _adorable_.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Jim says cheerfully. Leonard doesn’t have to look at him to know exactly the infuriating smirk he’s wearing now.

+

The audience hall is large and austere, dimly lit by a handful of wall-mounted torches to supplement the fading sunlight coming in from the high windows. The thirteen members of the Kindred’s High Council sit in hard-backed chairs behind a plain, curved wooden table, all of them wearing shapeless gray robes and impassive expressions – just about what Leonard would expect from folks who voluntarily abstain from every small pleasure that makes life worth living.

The woman seated at the center of the table – the Penitent Mother, Leonard assumes – is especially severe-looking, with a thin angular face and silver-streaked black hair yanked back into a tight knot at her neck. She observes their party with sharp eyes, lingering for a few seconds on Leonard before turning her attention to Jim.

“Well met, Brother James,” she says. “Are we to understand that this man is the husband you spoke of?”

“Well met, Mother,” Jim says in a rare tone of deference. He raises his and Leonard’s clasped hands. “And yes. Allow me to introduce my husband, Leonard.”

The words sound strange as hell coming out of his mouth. Leonard can’t even remember the last time Jim called him by his real name, to say nothing of the _other_ part.

“Well met in the grace of the gods’ glorious mercy,” the Councilors chorus in unison, staring so intently at Leonard that he breaks out in goosebumps. Jesus H. Christ. He’s faced down disciplinary tribunals less intimidating than these stone-faced kooks.

He feels a light _tap-tap_ against the back of his hand, a silent prompt from Jim. “Uh,” he blurts out, caught off guard, and dies a little on the inside as Jim’s fingers twitch in an otherwise expertly concealed spasm of laughter. He is going to strangle Jim with his bare fucking hands when this is all over – assuming that whatever hellish alien plague they’re chasing doesn’t get him first. “Well met. It’s, uh…it’s an honor to meet you all.”

The thirteen Councilors keep staring at him. _Waiting._

“…thank you,” he adds lamely.

Dammit, he’s a doctor, not an orator. Big flowery speeches are Jim’s thing; Leonard’s just responsible for dealing with whatever ass-kicking he might collect afterward.

The Mother seems to sense as much, as she directs her next words back to Jim. “Your husband does not share your loquacious nature, Brother James.”

“No, Mother,” Jim agrees. “He’s out of practice, I’m afraid. It’s a full-time job just listening to me, as I’m sure you can imagine. Poor Leonard only manages to get a word in every other day or so.”

One of the younger-looking Councilors actually cracks her expressionless mask to smile a little – the first hapless victim of Jim’s charm offensive, though undoubtedly not the last. He’ll get them all in the end; Leonard would stake a month’s water credits on it.

Well, maybe all except the Mother, who’s pursing her lips in a way that could just as easily be annoyed as amused. “And how long have you and your laconic spouse been married?” she inquires.

Leonard tenses up again – damn it all, why didn’t they think to talk this through ahead of time? – but Jim doesn’t miss a beat. “More than ten years now, Mother. Leonard and I met on our very first day at the Academy – that’s the training school for Starfleet recruits. Actually, we met on our way there, on the shuttle. It was…well, I wouldn’t call it love at first sight, exactly, but I can tell you Leonard made quite the first impression on me. All over me, in fact.” He leans forward slightly, like he’s sharing a secret, and confides in a low voice, “My husband here gets _very_ airsick.”

Leonard’s face flames red-hot with embarrassment. He grips Jim’s hand so hard he can almost hear their bones creaking, trying to convey just how much trouble he’s in, and Jim has the unmitigated gall to squeeze back – and then, to really rub salt in the wound, he lifts their joined hands and drops an exaggeratedly apologetic kiss on Leonard’s knuckles.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he says, not sounding it in the least. “But you wouldn’t have me _lie_ to these fine people, would you?”

Strangling is too good for him, Leonard decides. No, he’ll stick him in medbay to cool his heels for a spell, infect him with Findolessian pox and strap him to the bed so he can’t scratch at the welts, order his staff to feed him nothing but beets and chopped liver and that Plufeen pudding he hates, and after a few days of that maybe he’ll bring him back to Iqqar and see how he fares with another round in the Screaming Forest.

He does have to admit the joke’s landed well, even if it is at his expense. Jim was obviously aiming to lighten the mood, and he’s succeeded, as several of the Councilors are now trying not to laugh, coughing or stroking their beards in order to disguise their impious smiles.

Beside him, Leonard can hear Aaronson tittering too. He’ll kill her first, he tells himself: Aaronson, then the rest of the crew from before, then Jim. Jim he’ll save for last.

“In the interest of fairness,” Jim continues with a smile of his own, buoyed by the positive feedback, “let me assure you that my dear husband has put up with much worse from me over the years. And besides, he was an utter gentleman about the whole thing. Got me new boots and everything.” He pauses to wait out another sprinkling of poorly concealed laughter. “Now, I’ll grant you, this wasn’t quite the fairytale romance I’d imagined, but even with that…ah, _inauspicious_ introduction, it was clear to me from the start that this Leonard McCoy was someone truly special. Smart, dependable, hard-working, honorable, faithful, compassionate – a man anyone would be proud to call their husband.” He lowers his voice again. “Your clan is fortunate to boast of so many good, honest sons and brothers, but between you and me, back on Earth they’re rather thin on the ground.”

“Small wonder, in that wasteland of iniquity and temptation,” one of the Councilors sniffs. “With such constant enticement to sin, the gods’ children are too easily led astray into wickedness and depravity. When one lies down with the dogs, does one not rise with fleas?”

Jim nods in solemn agreement, looking for all the world like butter wouldn’t melt in that mouth. “Too true, Sister. Which is why I knew I couldn’t let Leonard get away. I was sure from that very first day that I’d found the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with.” He pulls a wry, self-deprecating face. “Of course, I did need to convince _him_ of that.”

There’s more scattered laughter. Even the Mother looks like she might be thawing some. The poor suckers never stood a chance, really: Jim’s a fearsomely slick liar when he puts his mind to it, and he’s playing these unworldly rubes like a fiddle, slowly but surely selling them on the Trojan horse that’s turned up at their doorstep. The character he’s crafted is perfectly calibrated to slip past their defenses, bold but respectful, self-impressed but well-intentioned – the kind of man who wears his flaws on his sleeve, secure in the knowledge that they only add to his appeal. A bit of a rascal, sure, but a harmless one, so transparently warm and good-natured that even the sternest Councilors seem inclined to forgive him his excesses. They’d never tolerate a man like him within their own ranks, but he makes for an entertaining visitor, someone they can feel both amused by and superior to. By the time Jim’s done with them, they’ll have happily carted that horse right on inside the city walls, patting themselves on the back for it the whole while.

Jim has his reasons for this deception, and fine upstanding reasons they are. He _is_ a good man, after all, in all the ways that really matter. He’s a better man than the Kindred could even begin to comprehend, cloistered and dogmatic as they are – but harmless? Oh, no. Not even close.

“And so,” Jim goes on, “I began my campaign. Fortunately, Leonard and I had a few classes together that first semester, and _somehow_ we always wound up sitting next to each other. Very mysterious.” That gets him another laugh, naturally. “He also turned out to be very much a creature of habit, so it didn’t take long to figure out when he normally went to the dining hall – and wouldn’t you know, those were just the times I found myself getting hungry. I don’t think the poor man got to enjoy half a dozen meals in peace that whole semester.” He glances over at Leonard with another shamelessly unapologetic smile. “Now, every once in a while he wouldn’t show, but I quickly learned that just meant he was so hard at work that he couldn’t be bothered to eat. And I couldn’t just let him go hungry, could I? So, as a caring friend, I had no choice but to get food for both of us and track him down wherever he was holed up so we could eat together. And then there were the _completely accidental_ times I just happened to run into him outside his dorm…or at the gym…or in the library… I tell you, the coincidences really started stacking up.”

Another ripple of laughter from the Council. They’re not even trying to hide it now.

“I think you’re all starting to get the picture – which puts you well ahead of Leonard, bless him. I couldn’t have been less subtle in my intentions if I’d carved a marriage proposal into a brick and thrown it at his head, but as time went on it became clear that I was pursuing either the cruelest or the most outstandingly clueless man in the universe. As smart as he was, he just did not seem to register my increasingly embarrassing attempts at courtship.” Jim sighs theatrically. “Well, we must all have some small flaws to keep us humble, and apparently this was Leonard’s. Fortunately for both of us, mine is a tendency toward…oh, let’s call it _persistence_.” He offers another wry smile as the Councilors laugh. “So I just kept carving out a place for myself in his life like we’d both agreed to it, and figured that eventually he’d either send me packing or get on board.”

That’s…not actually too far off from the truth, though Jim’s wisely edited out all the boozing, brawling, and other less than wholesome activities he dragged Leonard into that first year. He really did stick to Leonard like a burr from the beginning, always there no matter which way Leonard turned. He’d even pop up at the hospital sometimes, sneaking or charming his way past the front desk staff to pester Leonard on his breaks (and, yes, occasionally to force food on him). Leonard couldn’t seem to shake him. Not that he ever tried all too hard. He never really minded Jim’s company, even when he was at his most bothersome. He just couldn’t figure out what his game was – what some smooth-talking pretty boy prodigy could possibly want from a grouchy old cuss like him.

It took Leonard a while to see through the smoke and mirrors, to see how goddamn _lonely_ the kid was. Sure, he’d talk up a storm to anyone who’d listen, and lord knows he joked and flirted and played around with plenty of fresh-faced young things who fell under his spell, but he never let a single one of them within striking distance of a real human connection. He was hiding in plain sight, all that big talk and attitude projected around him like a damn deflector shield. Everyone at the Academy would’ve said they knew Jim Kirk – the Kelvin baby, the loudmouth, the troublemaker, the one to beat – but nobody had any idea who he really was.

Nobody except Leonard.

It wasn’t that Jim let down his defenses around him, so much as he occasionally offered a glimpse past them. It would be years before Leonard figured him out entirely, but it was enough, at first, to realize that there was more to this cagey, arrogant kid than met the eye, that he was both less and more than he pretended to be – and that, for some mysterious reason, he’d chosen to cast his lot with Leonard.

What that reason was, Leonard still doesn’t know. Maybe Jim only had one last shot at vulnerability left in him, and he decided to gamble it on the first person he came across. Maybe he thought that two barely functional human disasters might balance each other out. Maybe he sniffed out the yawning void of Leonard’s own isolation, the cold gnawing heartache of having no one left to nag at and fuss over and give a shit about.

Hell, maybe he just figured that with his knack for finding trouble, it’d be handy to get in with a doctor, even one as washed up and prickly as Leonard.

Leonard doesn’t know the real reason, even all these years later. He has no doubt Jim would tell him if he asked now, but the truth is he doesn’t much care. What does it matter? By the time he finally worked out what Jim was playing at, he liked the crazy son of a bitch too much not to keep him around, and that was pretty much that.

Leonard has completely zoned out of what’s going on around him, lost in his thoughts, but when he surfaces, no one seems to have noticed. All eyes are on Jim, who’s still chattering away, building on the bones of the story he’s constructed: a squeaky-clean, charmingly clumsy little romance between a high-spirited motormouth and a reserved, somewhat oblivious loner. He’s rambling now, blabbing on about all kinds of random shit, only some of which has any basis in reality – a lecture he convinced Leonard to attend with him, some unnecessarily complicated maneuvering he orchestrated to get them assigned to the same project group in ethics class, an awkward conversation about future plans that Leonard’s positive he pulled straight out of his ass. Leonard has always thought it was the mark of a bad liar, getting caught up on the details like this, but the Councilors are just about hanging off Jim’s every word, clearly swallowing the whole tale hook, line, and sinker. A couple of them have even leaned forward in their seats, like kids spellbound by some action-packed holovid.

In a place as dull as Hearth, Leonard supposes you’ve got to take your entertainment where you can find it.

Frankly, he’s feeling a touch spellbound himself. There’s something strangely compelling about hearing Jim spin this grand story, weaving in just enough truth that it feels real, feels _right_ , even to Leonard, who knows perfectly well things didn’t happen the way Jim’s claiming. He nearly finds himself nodding along at some points, mindlessly agreeing to a version of his own life that seems to make just as much sense as the one he got.

“So the end of the semester rolls around, and I am _drowning_ in work,” Jim says, in a tone that suggests he’s building to an important plot point, though Leonard can’t imagine what it might be. “I’ve got a million papers and presentations and class debates and exams, and I need to just put my head down and get through it, so I set up camp in an out-of-the-way corner of the library and pretty much just stayed there. I’d leave once or twice a day to go to class, pick up something to eat on my way back, maybe stop by the dorms for a quick shower, and then it was back to work. I barely had time to breathe, much less chase after Leonard…but for once, I didn’t need to.” He flashes Leonard a smug smile and gives his hand a conspicuous squeeze. “A couple days in, Mister Aloof over here tracked me down to my little work nest, and once he found me, he kept coming by to check on me. Two, three, four times a day he’d show up – because, you know, he just happened to be passing by. Of course.” The sly arch of his eyebrow makes it clear what he thinks of that excuse. “And, hey, since he was already there, why didn’t we go grab something to eat? No? Well, in that case he’d forgotten he had some protein bars in his bag. And it was awful late, didn’t I think it’d be a good idea to get a few hours of sleep? He could walk me to my dorm – he was heading that direction anyway.” He shakes his head. “I guess by that point I was such a mess he thought I needed an escort.”

“You were,” Leonard interjects unprompted, because this part’s true enough. “You looked like you had one foot in the grave.” Jim had been running himself ragged from the day they arrived at the Academy – taking too many classes, fighting tooth-and-nail to stay at the top of the heap in all of them, desperate to prove himself to Pike and their professors and everyone who called him _George Kirk’s son_ like he wasn’t his own damn person – and it all built to a frenzied crescendo at the end of the semester. Eventually Leonard would come to realize it was just Jim’s way, that he never found something worth doing that wasn’t worth wildly overdoing, but at the time, he was honestly concerned the kid’s heart might give out from the stress.

Jim shoots him a look of fond exasperation. “You see how he is?” he asks the Councilors, and they laugh right on cue. “I mean, I should have been thrilled, right? Here he was seeking _me_ out for a change. Any other time I’d have done any old thing he suggested, but I really didn’t have the time. Besides, if I’d left with him, even just to go eat, who knew whether I’d have had the willpower to drag myself back to work. So I’d say no, no, I’m fine, and he’d shrug and leave me be, and a while later he’d be back and we’d go through the whole scene again.” He tsks and adds with a warm twist of irony, “Honestly, the man just wouldn’t leave me alone.”

More laughter. Jim’s got them all now, every last one, just as Leonard predicted.

“Well, finally, after a couple days of this, he gave up on arguing with me and decided that if I wasn’t going to leave, he wasn’t either. It was the sensible thing to do, you understand. After all, _someone_ had to keep an eye on me to make sure I didn’t just drop dead in the middle of cramming for exams, and who better than a – a friend? So he brought everything _he_ was working on, and his own blankets, and plenty of food for the both of us, and we both spent the next week slaving away in our little nest.” He waves off the croon rising from the Council table. “Let me tell you, it was awful. _I_ was awful. I was practically speaking in tongues by the end, I was so out of it, and I’m sure I looked like something the cat dragged in. Probably smelled like it, too. But Leonard stayed with me the whole time. Even at my worst, he stayed right by my side.” He pauses, giving the payoff time to settle as the Councilors smile and sigh. When he speaks again, his voice has gone soft and nostalgic, almost wistful: “That’s when I knew he loved me back.”

Leonard glances sideways at him, surprised by both the words and his tone, but Jim doesn’t look his way this time. He’s gazing down at the flagstones with dreamy, unfocused eyes, seemingly lost in thought. His face is deceptively open and earnest, the very image of a man in love, and something goes painfully tight in Leonard’s chest.

It’s not true, he _knows_ it’s not true, that’s not how it happened – or it is how it happened, but it’s not what it _meant_. He did join Jim in his library hideout for the last few days of the semester, but it wasn’t some big romantic gesture like Jim’s making it out to be. He cared about the kid, that was all, and he was starting to figure out that Jim desperately needed looking after but didn’t know how to ask for it, didn’t even really know exactly what it was he’d be asking for, so it would be up to Leonard to bring this half-feral stray in from the cold and try his hand at housebreaking him.

Leonard did grow to love him eventually, of course he did – because Jim turned out to be the best thing that could’ve ever happened to him, because he was brilliant and daring and loyal and crazy as a bessie bug, because he brought hope and curiosity and _purpose_ back into Leonard’s life. In time he came to love Jim unconditionally, enough to sneak him onto the Enterprise and follow him out into the black and break his oath for him and get talked into all kinds of stupid shit like throwing on a wedding ring to put one over on a bunch of religious bumpkins – but all that came much later. Back at the end of their first semester, the two of them were still nothing more than a couple of fuck-ups with conveniently compatible baggage, just beginning to test the waters of real friendship. They certainly weren’t anywhere close to the kind of love Jim’s suggesting.

Leonard knows it’s not true, but, God, there’s something so _yearning_ in Jim’s expression that he suddenly finds himself wishing it were. He wishes he could go back in time and rewrite their story, blot out everything hard and messy and ugly and weave what’s left into Jim’s pretty lie, give them both the nice tidy happily-after-ever this tale’s obviously building toward. It makes so much sense the way Jim tells it, makes even Leonard believe that it could have, _should_ have happened like that.

But, no, he’s being foolish, wishing for the impossible in more ways than one. Even if they had gotten together back then, how would that have played out, realistically? The two of them wouldn’t have stood a snowball’s chance in hell at making it work in the long run, at finding their way to that fairytale happy ending. Try as he might, Leonard can’t imagine there’s any conceivable way they’d still be standing here together all these years later, happily married and stronger than ever. Far more likely that they’d have crashed during takeoff, and been damn lucky if they didn’t destroy each other in the process.

Brilliant and daring and loyal as he may have been, Jim Kirk at twenty-two was also a goddamn grab bag of unresolved trauma, suspicious and closed off, brimming over with self-hatred and survivor’s guilt. Pike’s challenge had given him a future to chase after, but his past was never far behind him in those days, and the looming threat of it made him volatile, determined to drink and fuck and fight his demons into submission whenever they started nipping at his heels.

That’s not to say that Leonard was any better. His daddy’s blood on his hands, losing the baby, Jocelyn leaving him, the suffocating depression that had tanked his prospects at the hospital – it had all left him a shell of himself, beaten down and resentful. Where Jim chose to run from his pain, Leonard wallowed bitterly in his, endlessly ruminating on all the myriad ways life had fucked him over. He was as much of a mess as Jim was, in his own way, jaded and self-pitying where Jim was defensive and distrustful. Neither of them were in any kind of shape to be taking a shot at romance at that point in their lives, and with _each other_? Jesus, it would’ve been a recipe for disaster. Odds are they would have gone down in flames, and Leonard would have lost Jim forever, long before he ever even really knew him. 

Nothing would have been worth that. _Nothing._ Not even the prettiest little fairytale Jim can spin up.

Beside him, Jim shakes his head, visibly collecting himself, and looks back up at the Council table with a rueful smile. “I’m sorry,” he says, as though most of the Councilors aren’t beaming at him, looking practically as gooey and starry-eyed as he does. “I haven’t told this story in quite a while, and to be honest, I’m a bit of a sap at the best of times.” He dabs carefully at the corner of his eye with a fingertip – hell, is he actually getting _weepy_? He’s really going for it here. “Well, the jig was pretty much up at that point, and needless to say, things went a lot smoother after that. We courted through the next semester and got married at the end of the year, right after exams were over. It was a small wedding, just us and the preacher, along with a handful of friends who hadn’t left for home yet.”

“Your families did not attend?” asks a white-bearded Councilor, sounding troubled. “Were they not involved in your courtship and betrothal?”

“Neither of us had much family left, Uncle,” Jim says, to a round of pitying tuts. “So we started our own.”

The Council murmurs in approval.

“You are happy together,” the Mother says. Her expression and tone have both warmed considerably since their arrival.

“Yes, Mother.” Jim trails his thumb down Leonard’s, a deliberate little motion calculated to draw attention. “We are.”

As one, the Council turns its gaze to Leonard, thirteen pairs of eyes boring into him expectantly. _Christ._ He doesn’t care if they’re smiling now; that’s still creepy as hell.

“Yeah,” he says. It comes out hoarse, rough in a way that feels dangerous, and he clears his throat. “Yeah, of course. I mean, I…I married my best friend. Couldn’t be happier.”

The Mother’s thin lips slant upward. “As it should be.”

She starts to say something else, but Leonard’s distracted by Jim, who’s right on top of him all of a sudden, closing what little distance there was between them. Jim’s fingertips are delicate points of pressure on his jaw, urging him to turn his head, and he obeys unthinkingly, only to see Jim looking at him with a silent question in his eyes. Leonard doesn’t even know what his answer is, exactly, but Jim must see that it’s not _no_ , because the next second he’s tilting his face at just the right angle and kissing him full on the mouth.

The kiss is a fleeting thing, as quick and dry and innocent as can be, but damned if it doesn’t rattle through Leonard like an _earthquake_ , shivering through his joints, shifting the ground beneath his feet. For the space of an instant, he forgets about the Kindred and Sulu and Aaronson and the sick kids and everything else, all of that eclipsed by Jim:

Jim’s hand on his jaw, holding him in place.  
The ticklish brush of Jim’s hair grazing his forehead.  
Jim’s thumb sweeping across his cheek in a tender, absentminded caress.  
The plush warmth of Jim’s mouth against his, soft and chaste, but teasing at more, so much more, anything he wants if he could just bring himself to ask for it, to _take it_ –

Jim looks him in the eye as he draws back, gazing up from under those long lashes, and if the kiss was a tease, that look is an unequivocal promise. He strokes over Leonard’s cheek one last time, presses the pad of his thumb to the corner of Leonard’s lips, and then lets his hand fall away, his own lips tugging up on one side.

Leonard stares at him, speechless, _breathless_ , a hot flush creeping down the back of his neck. It occurs to him, in the one staticky corner of his brain not knocked completely offline by what just happened, that he hopes Jim doesn’t realize the effect he’s had. Getting all worked up over a little church kiss like that – lord, the kid would never let him live it down.

But he can’t seem to pull himself together, not with Jim giving him that sweet, lopsided smile, as if they’re the only ones in the room, as if this were a real moment between them. Jim’s eyes are still fixed on his, and they’re so dark in this light, a deep velvety blue, like the last trace of daylight in the late evening sky. He’s just got the _prettiest_ goddamn eyes.

Then he winks one of those pretty eyes, a tiny flicker of humor even Sulu and Aaronson probably don’t catch, and the tension breaks, the strange tightness in Leonard’s chest easing up all at once, unraveling into much more manageable threads of fondness and annoyance and maybe just a little bit of grudging amusement.

Well, hell, he thinks philosophically – if he absolutely had to be married to some troublemaking jackass, he supposes he could do worse than _this_ troublemaking jackass.

He about jumps out of his skin a second later at the sound of a loud, meaningful cough from the Council table. Christ, they’re still stood right in the middle of the audience hall, completely on display for the Councilors, who are sitting there behind their table watching the pair of them with soppily indulgent smiles. Of course they are, that’s the _point_ of all this – to prove themselves to the Kindred, to paint a convincing portrait of an inoffensive, traditional-enough marriage so these backwater hicks will accept Leonard’s presence and he can get to work hunting down this sickness Jim’s so worried about. This is all part of Jim’s Trojan horse strategy: the story, the hand-holding, the moon-eyed expressions, everything. It’s all make-believe, the shiny façade of a relationship that’s never actually existed. Leonard has _got_ to remember that, for the sake of his own sanity.

Shit, whatever silver-tongued sorcery Jim’s been working here, it’s potent as hell. Even Leonard’s forgotten there are people in the damn horse.

“My apologies, Mother,” Jim says as he turns back to face the Council, sounding slightly abashed.

“Nonsense,” the Mother says sternly, with more vigor than Leonard has heard from her yet. “Does my daughter seek forgiveness for stoking the kitchen fire? Does the farmer repent of weeding and watering their crops? The gods bid us to cherish and honor our spouses, Brother James, for the untended garden falls to disorder and neglect, while that which is carefully nurtured will flourish and thrive.” The other Councilors are nodding along, heads bobbing in unnerving unison. This is obviously a well-rehearsed lecture. “Marriage is the foundation upon which the family home is built – it must be maintained lest the whole structure fall to ruin. Perhaps elsewhere in your Federation, a faithful and affectionate union may be cause for ridicule or contempt, but I assure you that we Kindred abide by the age-old teachings which exhort us to devote ourselves to our this-worldly families with the same fidelity as we show to the gods themselves.” She eyeballs them with a discomfiting blend of censure and approval. “It is encouraging to be reminded that even on Earth, with all its distractions and temptations, there are yet some who walk a righteous path. Your commitment to one another is to be commended. You must take care not to allow wicked influences to corrupt that which should be held most sacred.”

“Indeed, Mother,” Jim says, bowing his head. “Forgive me if I seemed cavalier. Rest assured that Leonard and I both value the strength and sanctity of our marriage above all else.”

Leonard is still trying to wrap his head around half of what the Mother was going on about – honestly, Jim gives _him_ grief for mixing metaphors? – but he nods too, trying his best to mimic Jim’s expression of humbled deference.

The Mother considers them both for a long moment. “What of children?”

“None yet, Mother,” Jim says, with a quick squeeze of Leonard’s hand, knowing as he does how that question, and his answer, twang painfully deep down in Leonard’s chest, the ghost of old heartbreak still rattling its chains in the catacombs of a former life. “But we have plans, naturally. After the end of this mission, when we can settle down and provide a safe and stable home for them.”

This excuse seems to satisfy the Councilors, including the Mother, who rewards the two of them with another faint thin-lipped smile. “May the gods grant you that which you desire in the fullness of time,” she proclaims, in the manner of a woman who’s used to making such demands, and who fully expects to be heeded. She looks up toward the windows and the darkening sky outside. “On the subject of time, it seems the hour has already grown late. We will begin negotiations in the morning.” She turns back to Jim. “You are invited to join us in the congregation hall for the evening meal. We have also prepared sleeping quarters for you, though perhaps you would prefer to return to your more…luxurious accommodations aboard your vessel.” There’s more than a hint of challenge in her voice, and Leonard knows even before Jim says anything that they’re going to be stuck down here in this spartan hellhole for as long as the mission takes.

Jim bows his head again. “We are honored to accept your hospitality, Mother.”

The Mother purses her lips again. It’s a positive sign this time, Leonard thinks. “Very well. If you would be so kind as to wait outside, we will conclude the day’s business and join you shortly to escort you to the congregation hall.”

+

“Laying it on pretty thick back there, don’t you think, Captain?” Sulu says as soon as the heavy wooden doors have groaned shut, leaving the four of them standing alone outside the audience hall in the rapidly falling dusk.

Jim scoffs. “Says from the guy who met his husband by literally swooning into his arms like the damsel out of some old romance novel.”

“Man, I told you, it was _heatstroke_ ,” Sulu says. “It’s not like I _planned_ it.”

“Uh huh.” Jim claps Sulu on the shoulder. “I’m just saying, let’s not go casting stones, Brother Hikaru. That house of yours is looking pretty fragile.”

Sulu shakes off Jim’s hand with a roll of his eyes and turns a commiserating look on Leonard. “I swear you’ve got the patience of a saint, Doc. I would’ve throttled him about thirty seconds in. I don’t know how you put up with it.”

Leonard stomps down an irrational flare of defensiveness on Jim’s behalf. What the hell’s gotten into him today? Jim and Sulu have always had a brotherly, trash-talking relationship off the bridge; it’s never bothered him before. “Sedatives help,” he says shortly.

“Not here, they don’t,” Jim says. “No hypos allowed, remember? You’re stuck with me just the way I am, hubby.”

Leonard grimaces, tugging his hand free of Jim’s for the first time in what must be over an hour now. He’s practically lost feeling in his fingertips at this point. “Don’t call me that.”

“Oh, sorry,” Jim says. “What would you prefer? Pookie? Snookums? Buttercup?”

“None of the above.”

“Pumpkin? Baby cakes? Muffin? Honey buns?”

“ _No._ ”

“Now I’m hungry,” Aaronson sighs.

“Loverboy? Sweet cheeks? Come on, give me something to work with here.”

“How about ‘Leonard,’” Leonard says. “Seeing as how it’s my _name_.”

“Suit yourself, Leonard,” Jim replies. Somehow he manages to make it sound completely ridiculous, more absurd and ill-fitting than any of the options that came before it.

“Thank you,” Leonard says flatly, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction. What he actually wants is for Jim to cut the shit and just call him _Bones_ , the way he always has, but he will be goddamned if he admits that out loud, especially in front of Aaronson and Sulu.

“Yeah, this is officially my favorite mission ever,” Sulu says. “I take it back, Captain – McCoy was a way better choice than Chapel. This wouldn’t have been nearly as funny with her.”

Leonard frowns at Jim, surprised and unexpectedly stung for some reason he really doesn’t care to examine too closely. “You wanted to bring _Christine_ down?”

“Don’t look at me,” Jim says. “That was Sulu’s terrible idea. Which wouldn’t even have worked, since I’d already told them about my _husband_.”

“Ah, I still think we could’ve pulled it off,” Sulu says. “And we could’ve pretended she was pregnant or something, really hit all the right notes. What, like they’re gonna pull out a tricorder to check?”

“I don’t know, I think they were really feeling this,” Aaronson says with a grin, gesturing between Jim and Leonard. “It kind of works, you know? The grouchy, stoic silent type and the bossy, overbearing chatterbox – no offense, sir.”

“None taken,” says Jim.

“Speak for yourself,” says Leonard, glaring at Jim before turning it on Aaronson, who has the nerve to laugh.

“See, that’s what I’m talking about. You remind me of my parents. You know, if my parents were Starfleet officers instead of frail elderly Brooklynites whose idea of adventure is an extra half-glass of wine with dinner.”

“Am I your mom?” Jim asks. “I bet I’m your mom. That explains a lot about you, by the way, Lieutenant.”

“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment, sir.”

“You should.” Jim abruptly cocks his head to the side, like a curious dog. “All right, break time’s over, folks. Sounds like they’re finishing up in there.”

Sure enough, if Leonard strains to listen over the shrill chorus of cricketsong starting to rise from the surrounding fields, he can just make out a low buzz of activity coming from inside the audience hall: the creak of wood scraping over stone, the indecipherable murmur of conversation. How Jim heard it is a medical mystery. He ought to be stone deaf from all the explosions and teeth-jarring music he subjects his ears to, but the man’s got uncommonly keen hearing – when he chooses to, anyway.

Jim reaches out to reclaim Leonard’s hand, slotting their fingers together again like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “C’mere, sugar plum – sorry, sorry, _Leonard_. I forgot.” He smirks in response to Leonard’s scowl, entirely unrepentant.

Sulu pats Leonard’s shoulder in a show of sympathy, probably more to needle Jim than anything. “Hang in there, Doc. Just remember, you get to cut the knot as soon as we’re done here. I’ll throw you a divorce party and everything.” He lowers his voice and adds, with a significant raise of his eyebrows, “And, hey, if you need help hiding the body…”

“You know, Demora would be just devastated to find out her dad was a heartless monster reveling in the downfall of true love,” Jim says in a warning tone.

“Low blow using my kid against me, sir,” Sulu reproaches him. “You’re a family man now. You should know loved ones are off limits.”

“You literally just offered to help my husband murder me. Which definitely counts as conspiracy to mutiny, by the way. You’re demoted.”

“Yeah, right. Who’s gonna fly that thing – _you_? You can’t even dock her without scraping the hull.”

“Seriously, you have got to let that go,” Jim says. “It was one time, and we were _on fire_. Forgive me if I was a little distracted.”

Some days Leonard honestly can’t believe these people are the best Starfleet has to offer. “Are you two toddlers about done, or am I going to have to ask the Mother to find a quiet place to put you down for a nap?”

“I’m done if he is,” Sulu says. Real mature.

“Yeah, we’re done.” Jim sidles a bit closer to Leonard, nudging their shoulders together. “You’re not really going to kill me, are you, Bones?”

_Bones_. Against his will, not to mention his better judgment, Leonard feels himself softening. He looks at Jim, crowded up in his space and watching him with those pretty twilight eyes, mouth tilted into another crooked smile. Jim Kirk, his troublesome stray – domesticated now, but far from tame, still running roughshod over him and dragging him into all manner of idiocy, secure in the knowledge that he’ll be forgiven just about anything.

When it comes right down to it, Leonard’s the biggest sucker of them all, really. Ten years he’s had to build up a resistance to Jim’s tricks, and if anything, he’s only grown more susceptible. As his mama used to say, if there were a contest for hopeless cases, he’d take the prize.

“Maybe, maybe not,” he tells Jim. “I’m weighing my options.”

Jim adjusts his hold on Leonard’s hand, tightening up the weave of their fingers. “Well, let me know what you decide,” he says amiably, and leans in to press another soft, smiling kiss to Leonard’s cheek just as the doors of the audience hall creak open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so grateful for the warm response to this fic! Thank you all for your kudos and wonderful comments - I can't tell you how encouraging they are.
> 
> On [Tumblr](https://fireinmywoods.tumblr.com/post/172584026286/fic-palimpsest-28).


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which dinner is served, Leonard is not a people person, and Hearth’s newest celebrity couple finally get a moment alone. Sort of.

Given the Kindred’s apparent fondness for living metaphors, Leonard isn’t surprised to learn that their main hall is built around an actual hearth: a colossal stone fireplace in the center of the room, open on all sides and laid with a roaring fire which fills the entire hall with heat and light.

The Kindred apparently eat most every meal together, and they’re not overly fussy about individual family units. They really do seem to view the whole clan as one big family, and that extends to mealtimes, when they all sit themselves down at the long tables filling the congregation hall, sharing a bench with whatever Brothers or Sisters or Aunts or Uncles they happen to end up near.

The Enterprise crew is more intentionally seated at a table with several Councilors and what seem to be some portion of their immediate families. To Leonard’s chagrin, he and Jim are placed front and center, right where everyone at the table can get a nice clear look at them. Leonard hasn’t felt so overtly on display since his and Jocelyn’s wedding reception. At least the Kindred aren’t likely to start tapping their cups to make him and Jim kiss – though he has no doubt they’d be all for it if they knew it were an option.

Their fellow diners are obviously hoping for an encore to Jim’s earlier performance, and Jim doesn’t disappoint. He’s very much _on_ from the moment they sit down, chatting away with everyone around them, asking endless questions about their families – _How long have you been married? How many grandchildren do you have? When’s the baby due?_ – and listening to their responses with what appears to be genuine interest, smiling and nodding and offering compliments in all the right places. He peppers the conversation with lighthearted anecdotes of his own, blending fact and fiction so skillfully that even Leonard can hardly tell where one ends and the other begins: his disastrous first attempt at recreating his grandmother’s pot roast recipe, the Enterprise’s recent visit to a planet where the natives aged backwards, the time he dropped his wedding ring in the Tullisian Poison Swamp and nearly lost a hand getting it back, the neighbor girl who lived downstairs from his and Leonard’s first apartment and decided the best strategy for pursuing her passionate seven-year-old crush on Leonard was to compose elaborate signed confessions from “Jim” disclosing all the terrible crimes he’d committed.

(“Oh, she hated my guts,” he says, laughing along with his audience. “Poor kid. I had to feel for her. If I’d had any real competition for Leonard back before we were married, I probably would’ve done something ever crazier – and I was an _adult_.”)

Through it all, he’s constantly checking in with Leonard, looking over to take in his reaction to a story, turning to him for confirmation of some trivial detail or another, lavishing him with a thousand unnecessary touches. He brushes imaginary crumbs off Leonard’s sleeve and steals bites from his plate, teases and flatters him, leans in close to whisper side comments in his ear. He’s playing his role as smitten, attentive husband to the absolute hilt – well past the point of overkill, in Leonard’s opinion, but the Kindred are eating it right up. They really must be starved for entertainment out here.

Leonard supposes he should be thankful for the dynamic they’ve established, in which Jim does the heavy lifting and all he has to do is play along. Even so, it’s nerve-wracking being so intensely under the spotlight, knowing his every word and expression are being scrutinized and dissected by a bunch of strangers. And as for the touching – well, he can’t say he _minds_ it, if he’s being honest with himself, but there’s something profoundly disconcerting about how performative it all is, the unsettling nagging thought that Jim’s just giving the people what they want to see. It’s been a long time since he felt like he had to second-guess Jim’s intentions or wonder what he’s really thinking. This feels like backsliding, and it bothers him more than he’d like to admit.

At least the food is decent: platters of golden cornbread, bowls of creamy polenta seasoned with little bits of bacon, a bittersweet corn-based drink the Kindred call _avati_. It’s the plainest of fare, but well-prepared. At least it hasn’t come out of a food slot, which gives it an edge over most of what Leonard’s eaten since they left Earth.

At one point while most people at the table are distracted with side conversations, the man on Leonard’s other side leans over and tops up his and Jim’s tankards with a strangely meaningful smile. Leonard awkwardly smiles back, not understanding – at least not until he raises his cup to drink and catches a whiff of what’s inside.

“Wow.” Jim sputters a laugh into his tankard. “This is, uh…very strong, Brother Ernesto.”

“Even the most conscientious among us are not immune to momentary lapses, I’m afraid,” Ernesto says gravely, his eyes alight with a distinctly un-Kindredlike glint of mischief. “You see, some time ago I produced a barrel of good wholesome avati and stored it overnight in the back corner of my cellar, intending to retrieve it the next afternoon for my daughter’s wedding. In all the fuss of preparation the next day, however, it simply slipped my mind. Sadly, by the time I discovered my error, the damage was already done, and the avati had degraded into this…subpar swill. But the gods bid us not to waste that which they have so graciously provided, so I resigned myself to consuming it myself so as not to make others suffer for my mistake.” His mouth twitches, not quite disguised by the cover of his bushy, grey-threaded beard. “Fortunately, I am blessed with a few steadfast friends who are willing to partake of the vile brew in order to share my burden.”

“We should all have such friends,” Jim says with a smile. “My husband and I are honored to be counted among them.” He takes a draught off his tankard, maintaining an impressively straight face while he rolls it around his mouth and swallows.

“It has quite a strong taste, but not altogether unpleasant, wouldn’t you say?” Ernesto says, watching Jim keenly for his reaction.

“Not unpleasant at all,” Jim says, lying through his teeth. That poker face may have fooled Ernesto, but Leonard’s been drinking with him for years. He could tell it took all Jim’s considerable willpower not to spit his mouthful right back into the cup.

Leonard can’t say he blames him. He’s drunk his fair share of moonshine and home brews, but this stuff is first cousin to rubbing alcohol; he feels like he might go blind just sniffing at it. If it wouldn’t cause a scene, he’d seriously consider smacking the tankard out of Jim’s hand to keep him from poisoning himself.

A pair of little boys run up to the table, tugging on the baggy sleeve of Ernesto’s robe, and he turns away to address them. Jim takes the opportunity to lean over and whisper in Leonard’s ear, “Oh my _God_ , it’s like orientine acid. I think it’s eating a hole through my stomach lining.”

“You need to stop drinking every damn thing people hand you,” Leonard mutters back. “I’d’ve thought you’d know better after your little adventure on Rejo II.”

“Are you kidding? I’d drink that elixir again in a heartbeat. I could _see sounds_ , Bones. How awesome is that?”

Leonard doesn’t know why he bothers. “Yeah, well, keep drinking that shit and the only thing you’ll be seeing is the inside of a toilet bowl.”

“They don’t have toilets here,” Jim says cheerfully. “Indoor plumbing is a worldly luxury to be shunned by all the gods’ righteous children. Did I not mention that?”

Leonard mentally adds a week to Jim’s imprisonment in medbay. And more beets. The little bastard’s gonna be up to his _eyeballs_ in beets by the time Leonard’s through with him.

+

Leonard is hopeful that dinner will mark the end of what has been a longer, weirder, and exponentially more stressful day than he expected when he got up this morning. Unfortunately, their hosts have other plans. After the meal is over and the dishes have been cleared away, they’re ushered outside to where another massive fire has been laid in an open pit, surrounded by rings of rough-hewn wooden benches. From the noises the Kindred are making, this is the setting for some kind of socializing and fellowship hour, which is sure to drag on even more torturously than dinner without the distraction of food. The prospect makes Leonard want to scream, or maybe take off running through the cornfields, comm the ship and beg Scotty to please please _please_ bring him back before he has to feign interest in one more rambling account of which great-great-grandmother begat which branch of cousins.

But then – as with most of the disasters Leonard finds himself in the middle of these days – there’s Jim to consider. Jim needs him here. He’s worried about the kids, about this mystery illness Leonard has yet to catch hide or hair of, and he’s counting on Leonard to help him figure it out. Leonard can’t just leave him in the lurch.

He steals a glance at Jim, hoping to shore up his resolve one way or another, and startles when he meets Jim’s eyes, having evidently caught him in the middle of his own glance. The tiny shock of it jolts through him, tightens his grip on Jim’s hand. It’s pure reflex, nothing more, but Jim squeezes back anyhow, and _smiles_ at him – as if he’s really and truly happy to be standing here in the ass-end of nowhere, surrounded on all sides by cornfields and sanctimonious puritans, holding Leonard’s hand.

Damn it all to hell.

All right, _fine_. Leonard will play nice a while longer, for Jim’s sake. If he’s going to do that, though, he needs a break, and he needs it right the fuck now.

He makes a beeline for one of the farthest-flung benches, Jim following close behind, clinging to his hand like he has been all day. That’s fine. Leonard’s only trying to escape the slavering wolf pack of their audience, not Jim himself. He just needs some space to decompress, turn off for a few minutes, and Jim’s the one person in the universe who doesn’t feel like _work_ to be around. Even after all the shit he’s pulled today, Leonard would still rather have the jackass with him than not.

He takes a seat at the very end of one of the outer benches – whoever’s going to be pestering them next, they can be Jim’s problem, not his – and Jim plunks down beside him, so close he’s practically in his lap.

“How you holdin’ up?” he asks quietly, drawing their hands over to rest on his leg. That particular move is undoubtedly for the Kindred’s viewing pleasure, but the question is just regular old Jim, direct and unaffected, and it goes a little way toward soothing Leonard’s frazzled nerves.

But only a little way. “You owe me _big time_.”

Jim gives a low whistle. “That well, huh?” He takes a sip from his tankard. Leonard left his behind in the congregation hall, glad of the excuse, but Jim seems to like having a prop, or else he’s quickly developed a taste for shitty hooch. “Well, the good news is, this shouldn’t last too long. The Kindred are the ‘early to bed, early to rise’ type.” 

“No,” Leonard says sardonically. “These party animals? And here I was looking forward to sampling the local nightlife.”

Jim grins into his cup. “Careful Brother Ernesto doesn’t hear you say that. The guy’s running a secret still right under the Mother’s nose – I bet he’d be happy to invite us over for some after-hours boozing. Who knows who else is in on it? We could end up partying the night away with half the Council.”

Leonard makes a face. “I’ll pass, thanks.” Jim can have another hour of halfhearted civility out of him, tops, and then he is well and truly done for the night. His tolerance for small talk and ass-kissing only extends so far, even for Jim.

He’s actually kind of surprised that they haven’t already been swarmed by their adoring fans. In what may be the first stroke of luck he’s had all day, Sulu and Aaronson are sitting all the way on the other side of the fire, each of them having been waylaid by Kindred members eager to show off their (many, many) children. So far, though, Leonard and Jim have managed to escape the same fate. The benches around them are gradually filling up with grey-robed occupants, but no one has joined them on theirs.

Speak of the devil. Leonard spots an older fellow heading in their direction and groans internally, steeling himself for another onslaught of chitchat and platitudes – but then a ruddy-faced woman (the man’s wife, most likely) catches him by the arm and steers him to another bench, whispering something in his ear. She glances back over at them once she and her husband are seated, and Jim raises his tankard in a toast and shoots her a showy wink.

Oh. So _that’s_ what this is. They’re not really out of the spotlight at all. The Kindred are just giving them their own little stage apart from the crowd, like zoologists keeping a prudent distance from their research subjects to observe how they behave in their natural environment.

It’s a faux privacy they’re being offered, but Leonard will take it. Anything to get a few minutes of peace and quiet – or what passes for it where Jim’s concerned, anyway.

He eyes the tankard Jim’s been nursing, wondering if he needs to worry about him getting sloppy on top of everything else. Jim’s a pretty mellow drunk these days, but there’s no telling what a bellyful of bathtub gin will do to him. “How much of that rotgut have you had?”

“Just the one taste,” Jim says, which seems like an unusually bold lie even for him, at least until he sticks his cup under Leonard’s nose, cluing him in to the fact that the contents have somehow been reverse-miracled from whiskey into water. “Switched it out as soon as I could. That shit’s like 200 proof, and my doctor told me I’m not allowed to do anything stupid.”

Leonard cracks a smile at that, his nerves settling a little more. “Sound advice. Color me impressed that you’re actually following it.”

“Excuse me, I have been an _angel_ these past few weeks,” Jim says with exaggerated affront. “I’ve been doing my PT, haven’t I? I’ve come for all my follow-ups, on time and everything, even though you always pawn me off on Chapel and you _know_ she loves finding excuses to jab me with stuff. I took a break from sparring, I’ve been eating all the gross vegetables on your list, I haven’t been in a single fistfight – I’m following your rules to the letter, and you’re still not satisfied.”

“Oh, get off your damn high horse,” Leonard says. “What do you want, a medal? Keeping yourself alive for a few measly weeks isn’t some back-breaking ordeal for most folks, you know. Besides, you’ll be back to your old tricks as soon as the clock runs out. You’re like some little hellraiser pretending to be nice until Christmas to impress Santa. You ain’t fooling _me_ , kid. We both know good and well which list you belong on.”

“Unbelievable,” Jim says – another of his uncanny impersonations, though he never can get Leonard’s accent quite right. He raises his cup for a drink and adds loftily, “I guess there’s no pleasing some people.”

They fall into a comfortable silence after that, Jim probably eavesdropping on nearby conversations while Leonard does his very best to tune them out as he casts fruitlessly around for something to distract him from his slowly ebbing agitation. He doesn’t want to glance around the crowd too much, wary of making eye contact and accidentally inviting over unwanted company, and there’s not a lot else to look at. They’re surrounded by corn, corn, and more corn, the peaked roofs of the congregation hall and a few nearby houses barely visible over the towering stalks. The double moons overhead are kinda interesting, one nearly full, the other a slender reddish crescent, but they can only hold his attention for so long. The rest of the sky is just stars, and lord knows he’s seen enough of those to last him a lifetime.

For lack of anything better to focus on, he winds up looking down, examining his and Jim’s hands where they’re propped on Jim’s leg: Jim’s paler fingers twined through his, the angles of their knuckles, the familiar topography of veins and metacarpals standing out in the back of Jim’s hand, the glint of that damn creepy-ass ring. 

Christ, this is all so fucking weird. Only Jim could get them into a mess like this.

By the look of the corn, it’s early fall here on Hearth. The temperature has dropped since the sun went down, a cool breeze whistling through the corn stalks and ruffling their hair, and the heat from the fire doesn’t quite reach the outermost ring of benches. Still, Leonard’s immediately on his guard when Jim sets his tankard down and gives a big, dramatic shiver. Sure, it’s a bit chilly, but Jim normally likes to pretend he’s immune to silly little things like ambient temperature, as evidenced by the countless cases of frostbite, chilblains, and hypothermia he’s presented with over the years. Suffice it to say, Leonard’s not falling for the delicate flower act.

His skepticism is rewarded a moment later, when Jim finally releases his hand only to wrap that arm around his back, cuddling closer to him on the bench. He widens his eyes in response to Leonard’s arched brow, all innocence. “What? I’m cold. And my big, strong husband is right here to cozy up with. It’d be out of character if I _didn’t_ take advantage of that.”

Leonard nudges his elbow into Jim’s ribs, hoping it’s too dark for Jim or anyone else to see the color he can feel rising in his cheeks. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

“I think I’m enjoying it the exact right amount,” Jim says breezily. He pokes Leonard in the chest. “You, on the other hand, need to lighten the fuck up. This isn’t really _that_ bad, is it?”

Leonard grunts, noncommittal.

Jim scooches closer still, his hand creeping up Leonard’s back to rest on his shoulder. “On a scale of, I don’t know…Risa to mole people.”

Leonard winces. “Would you stop bringing them up? Criminy.” Jim cackles to himself, and Leonard elbows him in the ribs again, a good deal more sharply this time. “And you know what, if it were up to me, I might pick them. At least they didn’t stare at us like we were some kind of sideshow act.”

“Because they were _blind_. Now you’re just being difficult.” Jim rubs Leonard’s shoulder, his supposedly cold hand feeling very warm indeed through Leonard’s shirt. “Look, tomorrow we’ll get you in to see the kids, you’ll do your genius doctor thing and figure out what’s going on, and then I promise I’ll let you get back to terrorizing innocent ensigns who forget to come in for their BC injections. In the meantime, could you please just try to relax? Of course these guys are paying attention to us – it’s either that or watch the corn grow. Our visit is probably the most exciting thing that’s happened here in years. C’mon, loosen up a little. Have some fun with it.”

_Fun_ is a pretty far cry from the mood he’s in, what with the Kindreds’ beady eyes boring into them from all angles, Sulu smirking or making kissy faces every time he catches Leonard’s gaze – and that’s not even getting into the twisted, contradictory feelings he has about the quietly possessive weight of Jim’s hand on his shoulder, the way Jim’s been staking his husbandly claim all night with one casually familiar touch after another.

Leonard’s not sure how to explain all that, though, and he’d probably just end up digging himself even deeper into this mess if he tried. Instead, he chooses the lesser evil of a slight concession, working his arm between them and sliding it around Jim’s waist, telling himself as he does so that it’s no big deal. It’s just Jim. He’s put an arm around Jim plenty of times before. No need to overthink it.

Jim shifts agreeably into the hold, somehow managing to tuck himself even closer against Leonard’s side. “There we go,” he says with an infuriating touch of condescension. “Now was that so hard?” 

“You are without a doubt the most godawful obnoxious husband a man could have,” Leonard informs him.

“Aww, Bones, you old romantic, you.” Jim cranes over and pecks Leonard’s cheek, which should not make Leonard’s fool heart flutter like it does. “Good thing you let me handle our grand origin story earlier, Romeo.”

Leonard shakes his head in disbelief. “You are so full of it. I can’t believe they bought half the horseshit you were selling back there.”

Jim shrugs. “Ah, everyone likes a good story. That’s just human nature. And it wasn’t _all_ horseshit. I just…embellished some things.” His hand has migrated across Leonard’s shoulder to his neck, fiddling idly with the layers of his uniform collar. “After all, you know what they say: what is a lie but the truth in masquerade?”

His tone is one of airy nonchalance, but it doesn’t land quite right. Leonard has known him too long and too well not to recognize when he’s only pretending not to give a shit.

Leonard turns his head and finds Jim already looking at him, the hint of a smile playing around his mouth. He’s sitting so close, _intimately_ close, and Leonard wants to ask just exactly how much truth they’re talking, here, but he can’t quite bring himself to speak the words. This whole day has him so goddamn turned around; his heart is a snake nest of competing emotions, chaotic and confused, and he’s more unnerved by the fact that he’s not sure how Jim would answer that question than by any possible answer he could give.

Jim doesn’t say anything either, just keeps looking at him with that cryptic little almost-smile. The light from the fire casts a flickering coppery-gold glow over the right side of his face, gilding his features, catching in his lashes. His eyes are gleaming, unreally bright, so heartstoppingly beautiful that Leonard wants to _touch_ them, insanely, wants to capture that glittering fiery blue in his own hand like an opal and take it with him everywhere he goes.

God, he wants all kinds of crazy, paradoxical things. He wants the pretty lie Jim told the Council earlier, that sweet and gentle romance, how _easy_ it sounded, but even more than that he wants to go back to their first semester at the Academy, to the ugly reality of their cheerless library nest, just so he can grab hold of that loudmouthed, wounded, insecure stray and give him a fucking hug.

He wants Jim to kiss him again, right here and now, pull him close in front of all these people and kiss him like he means it, like he was teasing at earlier, like he’s loved him from the start and he’ll give him anything he asks for, anything at all, and then he wants to take Jim to some dark quiet place and kiss him back, kiss him again and again until he can breathe past all this raw tangled-up ache inside him that he can’t put into words. He wants to hold Jim’s fire-gilded face in his hands and kiss the truth into his not-quite-smiling mouth and know that he _gets_ it, he understands what Leonard’s trying to say even when Leonard himself doesn’t, because that’s how it works when you fall in love with your best friend.

He wants all of that, and at the same time he wants to never leave this moment, sitting here together on this uncomfortable bench, Jim molded to his side with an arm curled around him and two fingers tucked into his shirt collar, watching him with fire in his eyes.

“Brother James!”

Jim turns toward the voice, plastering on an expression of ever-so-slightly tipsy good humor for the benefit for the woman who’s hailed him and for the rest of their audience. He’s on again, ready to launch back into the masquerade, but he doesn’t budge a millimeter from Leonard’s side, and somehow these past few minutes have flipped some kind of switch in Leonard’s brain which makes him find that comforting rather than disquieting.

A whole gaggle of people are approaching them, a couple Councilors among them, and Leonard resigns himself to another long spell of chatter and scrutiny. There’s no use fighting it, so he just wraps his arm more securely around Jim’s waist and gives himself permission to enjoy the feel of Jim’s warm body fitting so naturally against him, the comfortable pressure of Jim’s thigh and hip and flank against his own.

At the end of the day, what he really wants is _Jim_ – the craziest, most paradoxical thing of all. If this as much of him as he can have right now, he’ll take it, and be damned thankful for it, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On [Tumblr](https://fireinmywoods.tumblr.com/post/172821456001/fic-palimpsest-38).
> 
> Thank you for your wonderful, wonderful comments and messages! Each one means the absolute world to me. It's such a delight to hear from you and know you're enjoying this goofy little story.
> 
> To answer a common question, I'll be updating once a week on Wednesdays. Tune in next week for Jim upping his game, sleeping arrangements that leave something to be desired, and a long-overdue introduction to the sick kids. (Remember the sick kids? The...oh, what's the word I'm looking for..."plot"?)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a new day dawns on Hearth, Jim has a shaky grasp on the concept of personal space, and Leonard does his genius doctor thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild warning for a bit of gross medical stuff.

There’s a moment, adrift in the murky gray limbo between sleep and waking, when Leonard really and truly believes that the whole ordeal on Hearth may have been just a dream – a strange, confusing, nonsensical dream, but one that’ll fade in time, after he opens his eyes and finds himself back in the relative comfort and privacy of his quarters, ready to face a perfectly normal day.

That belief is shattered when he hears the shrill, distant squeal of a pig, an undeniable sign that this particular dream – no, _nightmare_ – is all too real.

He reluctantly pries his eyes open for a quick scan of his surroundings: exposed rafters overhead, probably crawling with plague-ridden rats or some other such diseased vermin; bare whitewashed walls; an itchy hand-woven blanket the color of soap scum and depression.

_Dammit._

The mastermind behind all this is plastered hotly against his side beneath the blanket, shirtless and snoring, face squashed inelegantly into the crook of his underarm. The leaden angle of Jim’s arm has him pinned from hip to sternum, Jim’s hand clutching a loose fistful of undershirt over his chest while an infernally sharp elbow digs into his belly. He’s most likely – Leonard prods his forehead none-too-gently to shift him up a bit – yep, make that definitely drooling on them both.

Leonard scrubs a hand over his face and sighs.

It’s not like this is anything out of the ordinary. Even awake, Jim has only a passing familiarity with the concept of personal space. Asleep (or worse, drunk) and it’s out the window entirely. Any attempt to disengage him just makes him cling tighter, burrowing into the nearest warm body he can find, arms and legs winding around his prey like Xemetian strangling vines.

Leonard has long since made his peace with it. He learned years ago – back in those halcyon Academy days Jim was spinning such pretty horseshit about yesterday – that when it came to Jim, he had to pick his battles or he’d die of exhaustion. Aggressive sleep cuddling is so far down the list of objectionable behaviors that it’s never been worth even a token effort to train him out of it.

Leonard’s willing to concede, though, that that may have been a mistake. He’s starting to think he’s grown too soft in his old age, too indulgent of Jim’s quirks and whims. Case in point: waking up with the drooling fool slowly suffocating himself in his armpit, crammed together on this narrow lumpy mattress stuffed with God knows what, stranded on some puritanical backwater so pious they don’t even believe in _pillows_.

The drooling fool apparently takes that thought as his cue to rouse. His fingers twitch around their handful of shirt, greedily crumpling more fabric into their grasp. He mumbles something incoherent, rolls his head slightly, and then, bafflingly, nuzzles even deeper into Leonard’s armpit with a squeaky, purring kind of groan. It’s a patently ridiculous sound, like a Tribble getting stepped on. Leonard hates himself a little for finding it so endearing.

Jim finally lifts his head and opens his eyes, squinting blearily around the room before turning to peer up at Leonard. “Mmmph. Morning, sunshine.” He offers Leonard what he likely imagines to be a rakish smile, complete with a coquettish flutter of his eyelashes. It might be more effective if he didn’t still have sleep crud in the corners of his eyes, not to mention that tacky smear of drying drool across his cheek.

As it is, Leonard’s not impressed. “Save it for your fan club, Casanova.” Now that Jim’s moved his head, Leonard raises his arm to shake out the pins and needles. “Thanks for cuttin’ off my circulation, by the by. Ain’t like I need my dominant hand – I’m only a trauma surgeon, is all.”

“You’d learn to use your feet, I bet,” Jim says. “Like a monkey. Monkey Bones.” He grins more naturally this time, drowsily pleased with himself.

“Sure,” Leonard says. “Then you bunch of knuckle-draggin’ apes would finally have the doctor you deserve.” Jim’s hair is sticking out in about a thousand different directions at once, and Leonard can’t resist the urge to ruffle it further with still-tingly fingers. “You look a mess. Best go get cleaned up before breakfast.”

“Mmm, do that again,” Jim says, nudging shamelessly into the scrub of Leonard’s fingertips.

Leonard rolls his eyes and shoves at Jim’s shoulder. “Get off of me, you horse’s ass. Go wash up. Your breath smells like a Bulgallian sludge rat died in your mouth.”

“Sweet talker,” Jim says affectionately, and gives Leonard’s chest a couple brisk pats before hopping up out of bed. He’s wearing nothing but his little black shorts – he’s never been much for modesty, no matter how ardently he might profess otherwise to the Kindred – and for a moment, watching that long, lean body walking away from him, Leonard forgets all about the drool and the eye crud and the paint-stripping breath. The flexing muscles of Jim’s calves and thighs, the swing of his arms, the taper of his waist a hand’s-breadth above the shifting, barely decent curves of his ass – he’s art in motion, effortlessly inhabiting every inch of his milk-pale skin, and Leonard _wants_ with such sharp, sudden urgency that it pangs in his fingertips. 

Jim hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts as he approaches the folding screen concealing the corner of the room that passes for a washing-up area, and Leonard quickly averts his eyes, annoyed with himself. _Get a grip, McCoy._ He’s not a damn teenager. He can handle seeing some skin without getting all hot and bothered.

And if he spends the next couple minutes thinking about necrotizing fasciitis and live _gagh_ and K’wustian plague sores before he deems himself ready to get out of bed – well, that’s nobody’s business but his own.

+

The good news is that there’s no moonshine to be found when he and Jim arrive at the congregation hall for breakfast. The bad news is that there’s no coffee, either, stimulants being one of the many wicked poisons prohibited by the Kindred’s gods.

Instead, the tables are laid with towering stacks of johnnycakes, accompanied by pitchers of dark, gooey molasses and jugs of some warm creamy drink not unlike atole. It’s pretty good, Leonard will grant them that much, though it’s no substitute for _coffee_.

The hall is only sparsely occupied – Leonard suspects they’ve come after the rush rather than before it, despite the fact that the sun’s barely up – but his hopes for a quiet meal are dashed when they’re joined at their table by Brother Abram, a youngish Councilor who seems especially taken with the pair of them. He and Jim exchange pleasantries for a while, thankfully leaving Leonard out of it for the most part, allowing him to eat and try to will himself to full alertness in relative peace.

Eventually, though, the topic turns to the reaccession negotiations that will begin after breakfast, and Abram makes a polite attempt to draw Leonard into the conversation. “Will you be joining us for the negotiations, Brother Leonard?”

Jim saves Leonard from having to answer by cracking up laughing like this is the funniest joke of all time. “Oh, no, no. My dear husband is many things, but a diplomat he’s most definitely not. He’d be bored stiff by all the dull back-and-forth.” He pats Leonard’s arm. “Actually, we were hoping you might be able to put him to work in the fields so he’s not just sitting idle. Or maybe you have some odd jobs that need doing – repair work, that sort of thing? Leonard’s very good with his hands.”

Leonard does not choke on his atole, but it’s a close goddamned call.

If Abram’s picked up on the blatant innuendo, he doesn’t show it. “We’ll find a place for you, Brother, never fear,” he tells Leonard kindly. “What _is_ your trade, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Leonard knocks his knee against Jim’s under the table, but Jim’s way ahead of him, as usual. “Leonard’s the head of our exobiology team – studying animal life and ecosystems, working with the geologists and botanists to assess a planet’s suitability for terraforming, that sort of thing. You’d be amazed by some of the life forms we come across, Brother. Let it not be said that the gods don’t have a sense of humor.” He takes a molasses-soggy bite of johnnycake and adds offhandedly, “He was a teacher before joining up, but of course there’s not much need for that onboard a starship. Even our youngest recruits have had about all the schooling they can stomach.”

“A teacher!” Abram exclaims. “Well, why didn’t you say so? I’m sure Sister Josephine would be thrilled to have some assistance at the schoolhouse. She’s got fifty-seven students, you know, and just her and young Sister Sofia to manage them all.”

Jim’s face lights up. “Hey, that’s a great idea!” He turns to Leonard with an expectant smile. “What do you say, sweetheart? Think you can remember your times tables?”

“Sure,” Leonard says, because what choice does he have? “Sounds great.”

Abram goes off to confer with Sister Josephine, and Leonard knocks his knee against Jim’s again. “A teacher, really?”

“You got a better idea for getting you in with the kids?” Jim shoots back. “Relax, you’ll do great. Or am I remembering some other Leonard McCoy who skipped a bunch of grades and graduated top of his class from med school? You’re like the king of school.”

“Yeah, I did skip a couple grades,” Leonard says. “The same grades you’re expecting me to _teach_.”

“Oh, whatever. You’ll be fine. You’re a brain surgeon, Bones. I think you can handle the water cycle and some sentence diagrams.” Jim raps his head with his knuckles, right in the spot where he fractured his skull last year (and went on to have himself an exciting series of posttraumatic seizures on the operating table, despite being pumped full of anticonvulsants, because the man just lives to keep Leonard on his toes). “C’mon, you think I’d let any old dummy mess around in here?”

“Probably,” Leonard says. “Reckon that says more about you than me, though.”

“You’re _mean_ without coffee,” Jim accuses, but there’s a smile in his eyes, so Leonard’s not too worried. “Here I am being all nice to you – ”

“So nice that you’re stealing my breakfast.” He prods Jim’s thieving fingers with his fork. “Paws off. You haven’t even finished yours yet.”

“Yours tastes better.” Jim pops the ill-gotten piece of johnnycake into his mouth and grins.

Leonard pokes him with the fork again – one to grow on, and all. “While you’re being so nice, do me an extra-special favor and try not to crack your fool head open again while we’re here, all right? These folks would probably pray you right into the grave, or stick a bunch of leeches on you, or something. And since _someone_ wouldn’t even let me bring a damn tricorder down, I wouldn’t have much choice but to let ’em.”

Jim hums thoughtfully. “You drive a hard bargain, but I guess I can manage that.” He thrusts his hand out. “Shake on it?”

Leonard raises his eyes to heaven and grudgingly gives Jim his hand – at which point Jim seizes it and drags it up to his mouth for a kiss.

Someone nearby literally _coos_ , like a deranged pigeon. It’s probably Sulu. Leonard’s changed his mind: he’s going to kill Sulu first, then Aaronson and the rest, and then bring Sulu back to life so he can kill him again. After that he’ll get to Jim, who’s earning himself another plateful of beets and Plufeen pudding with every second he keeps clutching Leonard’s hand, smirking at him with capital-T Trouble written all over that aggravatingly attractive face.

“You’re ridiculous,” Leonard tells him. He’s blushing again, he can feel it. If Jim keeps this up, he’s liable to end up with goddamn capillary damage. “Just remember, you’ve got seven days left on your sentence, so don’t do – ”

“ – anything stupid, I know, I know.” Jim lets go of his hand and claps him encouragingly on the back. “See, you’ve got a great handle on basic math. And with that in mind…” He nods toward where Brother Abram is smiling and beckoning from across the hall. “I think that’s your cue.”

Leonard heaves a sigh as he rises from the bench. “God almighty.”

“That’s the spirit,” Jim says brightly. “You’re even talking their language.” He makes quick work of clearing their dishes – stealing the last of Leonard’s johnnycake in the process, of course – and then swoops in even quicker for a parting kiss on the cheek, smacking and molasses-sticky. “Go get ’em, tiger. See you at lunch.”

+

Half an hour later, Leonard finds himself standing at the front of a packed one-room schoolhouse next to Sisters Josephine and Sofia, staring down four crowded rows of students. The kids range from chubby-cheeked little ones to gangly adolescents, all wearing the same shapeless gray robes, and all gawking at Leonard like he has three heads.

“Well met, children,” Josephine says in a clear, ringing voice that straddles the line between stern and kindly.

“Well met, Aunt Josephine,” the students chorus obediently, their eyes never straying from Leonard.

“Children, this is Uncle Leonard,” Josephine says, gesturing toward him, as if every kid in the room weren’t already staring a hole in his head. “He will be assisting us with our lessons today. We are truly blessed to have him with us, so make sure to be on your very best behavior and make your family proud.”

Leonard catches her shooting a warning glance toward the back left corner. He follows her gaze, his interest piqued, to see a sullen-faced girl slumping down in her seat, tucking her chin into the cowl of her robe. She looks to be about twelve or thirteen, but there’s something about her dull, listless eyes that makes her seem simultaneously older and younger.

Leonard’s almost positive he’s found one of his prospective patients. The girl just _looks_ sick, like Jim said.

He tries to subtly keep an eye on her as Josephine and Sofia begin assigning lessons – a spelling list for one cluster of kids, penmanship practice for another, a chapter out of an ancient trigonometry book for some of the older ones – and his suspicion is confirmed a few minutes later, when the girl reaches up to itch her nose and he spots a reddened, scabby patch on the back of her hand.

_Bingo._

He’s found one of his patients, all right. Now what the hell is he supposed to do about it?

+

“Did you see it?” Jim asks quietly, camouflaging the question with a peck to Leonard’s cheek as he drops down beside him on the bench.

Leonard nods. “Yeah. There’s three of ’em with it, best I can tell, but I’m betting some of the others are hiding it somewhere less visible. At least half a dozen of those kids are looking mighty poorly, rash or no rash.” 

Jim reaches for the nearest tureen and starts ladling chowder into his bowl. “And? What _is_ it?”

“No idea. It doesn’t look like any rash I’ve ever treated, and I can’t exactly run a scan on them.” Leonard says that last part kinda archly. He and Jim had a bit of a tussle yesterday over whether he should bring any equipment with him. Leonard wanted to know just how in the hell Jim expected him to identify some mystery disease and figure out how to cure it without any damn _tools_ , while Jim, fresh off his nearly mission-scuppering clash with the Council, was adamant that getting caught with medical equipment would mean immediate expulsion not just for Leonard, but for all of them, putting an end to their attempt to bring Hearth back into the Federation as well as any hope they might have of helping the kids.

In the end, Leonard agreed to take a stab at figuring out what was going on without any diagnostic equipment, and Jim promised he’d find a way to sneak down any supplies Leonard asked for if and when it became necessary. It was a solid compromise, one that left them both reasonably satisfied. Doesn’t mean he’s going to miss a chance to poke at Jim over it, though.

Jim shoots him a look, but doesn’t take the bait. “So?”

Leonard steals a quick glance around to make sure there are no kids or especially nosy-looking adults nearby. “One of ’em gave Josephine some lip when she was going over his work, so I had a little chat with her after. The kid, Arjun, is a real problem child, apparently – and whaddya know, turns out a few of the others I had my eye on are, too. If anyone’s going to act up, more often than not it’s one of them: talking back, getting into squabbles with other students, that kind of thing. Typical kid shit, if you ask me, but by Kindred standards, they’re raising Cain. Josephine sounds like she’s about at the end of her rope with the whole pack of them. None of them are doing too well in their studies, either. It’s not that they’re dumb – Arjun used to be one of her best students, she said. According to her, the problem is they’ve all just plumb gotten _lazy_. They’re distracted, can’t be bothered to pay attention during lessons, and they’re real sloppy with their work, if they even finish it, which they usually don’t.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Jim says, an unusual spark of anger in his voice. “They’re _sick_. Of course they can’t focus on their fucking long division.”

“You and I get that,” Leonard says evenly, aware that this might be striking a little too close to home for his own grown-up problem child. “But we both know these folks are gonna need more convincing. Luckily – well, luckily for us, anyway, a few of the kids have fallen so far behind in their schoolwork that they could really benefit from some one-on-one attention. Josephine was pleased as punch by my offer to take each of them aside for a special tutoring session this afternoon.”

“Sneaky,” Jim says approvingly, his flare of temper having apparently burned itself out. He pats Leonard’s cheek, the thin band of his wedding ring tapping peculiarly against Leonard’s jaw. “I knew I married a smart one.”

“Wish I could say the same,” Leonard says, mostly because he knows it’ll make Jim laugh, which it does.

“Asshole,” Jim mutters, and digs into his chowder.

“And how are the lovebirds?” Sulu appears and sits down on Jim’s other side, wearing an expression that might best be described as _shit-eating_. “Whispering sweet nothings again, as usual, I see.” He turns to the trio of women seated a bit farther down the table, who of course perk right up at the prospect of being drawn into conversation with their celebrity visitors. “They’re always like this, you know. You’d think they were newlyweds, the way they carry on.”

The ladies giggle – actually _giggle_ , Jesus, how old are they? – and scoot down the bench toward them, their incursion filling Leonard with dread and not a little resentment. He just wants to eat his food and shoot the shit with Jim a while longer before he has to get back to his spying and subterfuge; he’s not in the mood for more goddamn participatory theater.

Jim is smiling too, the traitor, but he redeems himself the next second by saying loudly, “Brother Hikaru, I don’t believe you and Sister Ayanna have been properly introduced. She has a daughter just Demora’s age, you know.”

Five minutes later, Sulu and the Kindred women are deeply embroiled in an animated discussion about the many quirks and idiosyncrasies of pre-teen girls, laughing and trading war stories like old pals, not even aware of how neatly they’ve been sidelined – or of how far Jim and Leonard have managed to slide away from them in slow, measured escape.

“Sneaky,” Leonard says in a low voice as Jim reaches across him for another piece of cornbread, discreetly taking the opportunity to edge them both a bit farther down the bench.

Jim arches an eyebrow at him, smug as he always is in the wake of one of his little triumphs. “Smart enough for you now, asshole?”

Leonard jabs deliberately at the most ticklish point along Jim’s side, triggering a puppyish yelp as Jim jolts and drops the cornbread. The maneuver buys him a few precious seconds to recover from the overwhelming wave of gratitude that’s washed up over him, as it occasionally does when Jim does something especially Jim-like. Sometimes he thinks he must have used up a whole lifetime’s worth of luck crossing paths with this idiot. That would certainly help explain why the years since have been one hectic misadventure after another – but God help him, if it came down to a choice between Jim Kirk and an easy, comfortable life, he’d choose Jim every time.

“You’ll do,” he says gruffly, and tries not to think too hard about how _right_ it feels when Jim grins and leans in to dot three feather-light kisses up the line of his jaw – much to the audible delight of Sulu and his new friends.

+

Leonard arranges to have his tutoring sessions outside – so as not to disturb the other students, of course, what with the kids in question being so disruptive and all.

First up is Arjun, the boy who was sassing Sister Josephine earlier. He’s a small, wiry kid, still a touch plump in the cheeks, but by the look of his fuzzy upper lip, he’s probably at least fourteen or so, stumbling his way through the unglamorous early stages of puberty. Leonard can’t imagine that’s a real fun stage of life in these parts.

He’s polite enough, anyway, with no sign of that mulish attitude that flared up earlier with Josephine. The novelty of Leonard’s presence must work in his favor: Arjun’s as intrigued by him as everyone else is, and he likely wants to impress him, keep on his good side. Leonard hopes he can use that to his advantage in getting the boy to open up.

They begin working through the algebra equations Arjun’s been assigned. Lord, but it’s been a long time since Leonard had to do this kind of thing by hand. He’s just glad Spock isn’t here to see him fumble his way through it. That bipedal computer could probably solve the whole problem set in under a minute, all while standing on one leg and reciting the Federation capitals in order of accession date.

For his part, Leonard has long since cleared out that space in his brain to use for more important things – Edosian anatomy, contraindications for melenex, Jim’s ever-growing list of allergies – so he’s doubly relieved when Arjun reaches to turn a page in the textbook, revealing the scaly, purplish rash all down the back of his hand.

“What’s that on your hand, there?” he asks, trying to sound nonchalant.

Arjun jerks his hand back into his sleeve. “It’s nothing, Uncle.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing,” Leonard says mildly. He leans back against the schoolhouse wall, deliberately giving Arjun space rather than chasing after him. “Looks kinda painful, actually.”

Arjun crosses his arms over his chest, curling in on himself like a pill bug. He won’t even look Leonard’s way. Well, that’s all right. Leonard’s the reigning galactic champion of making himself heard by stubborn young bucks pretending not to listen. And no offense intended to young Arjun here, but Leonard sincerely doubts he’ll be a tougher nut to crack than Jim Kirk.

He nods at where Arjun’s got his hands tucked in tight under his armpits. “Don’t suppose you’d let me take a look at it?” Arjun hunches in even farther on himself, and Leonard clicks his tongue. “Didn’t think so.”

He tips his head back against the wall and looks out at the corn bordering the schoolyard, vividly green against the backdrop of blue sky, golden tassels swaying lazily in the breeze. Terraforming is a hell of a thing. This place was probably an uninhabitable rock a couple centuries ago, and now it could easily pass for Illinois or Iowa. He wonders how Jim feels about that. All the work the man’s put into leaving his childhood behind, years of striking out deeper and deeper still into the great unknown, only to end up in another damn cornfield.

“You know,” Leonard says after a couple minutes, “I did used to be a teacher, but the truth is it’s been a while since I saw the inside of a classroom. That’s why I’m a little rusty on my polynomials.” He’s hoping for a laugh at his expense, but Arjun just keeps staring at the ground, stone-faced. Tough crowd. “What I do now, for Starfleet, is – applied research, I guess you could say. I’m an exobiologist. You know what that means?”

Arjun darts a look at him from under his lashes. “You study…living stuff?”

“That’s exactly right. And I’ll tell you, there’s all _kinds_ of living stuff out there.” He gestures up at the wide blue sky. “Lifeforms with a hundred tentacles that can all survive independently if they get cut off. Big slug-looking things that talk through telepathy. Giants made of stone that can live tens of thousands of years. Itty-bitty tiny beings who’ve built whole civilizations in a space half the size of this schoolhouse.”

“You’ve really seen all that?” Arjun asks softly. “No fooling?”

“No fooling. _Seen_ them – shoot, half the time we’re sitting down to dinner together. Jim, my husband, he’ll walk right up to the biggest, craziest-looking critters you’ve ever seen and say howdy-do, try to shake hands – assuming of course the thing’s got a hand to shake.”

“He’s not scared?”

“Oh, Jim’s not scared of much. _I_ am – ” And here, finally, Arjun does crack a smile. “ – but that’s what I’ve got him for, I guess. See, Jim knows that our job, the reason we’re out here roaming around the galaxy on that big starship of ours – it’s to meet people, and learn about them, and help them, if they need it. In fact, it happens pretty often that we end up on one planet or another because the people who live there have a problem they’ve asked the Federation for help with. The Wopytoans, for instance – they’re these folks that look just like you and me, except they have their children by splitting themselves in two. Can you imagine? Right down the middle.” He slashes an imaginary line down his face and chest, then pulls his hands apart like a banana peel. “Only, a while back, they were having this problem. People weren’t splitting right. They’d try, but then they’d just kind of…” He pushes his hands back together and makes a squelching noise with his mouth, as best he can approximate the bizarre, gelatinous sound of a failed fission. “Right back together. Well, that’s a pretty bad problem, isn’t it? Imagine if folks here stopped being able to have babies and grow their families. That’s what the Wopytoans were dealing with. As you’d expect, they were real upset about it. So they asked us for help, and we went to see if we could figure out what was going on.”

“And did you?” Arjun asks, wide-eyed with interest.

“We did. Wopytoa happens to be a planet with a lot of volcanoes. They’re mostly out in the middle of the oceans, where they don’t hurt anybody when they go off, so the Wopytoans don’t pay them much mind. But there’d been an unusual number of eruptions that year, big ones – so many and so big that the emissions had actually changed the balance of gasses in Wopytoa’s atmosphere, which in turn brought down the average temperature on the planet’s surface by a few degrees. The difference wasn’t something people really noticed day to day, but come splitting season, they just weren’t quite warm enough to reproduce.” 

Arjun’s eyes are even rounder now, making him look every inch the child he still mostly is. “So what did they do?”

“It took some doing, but in the end we were able to recalibrate their atmosphere, get everything in the right proportions so the planet’s surface temperature would return to what it was supposed to be. And in the meantime, we turned to a real sophisticated, cutting-edge technology to elevate individuals’ internal temperatures by the precise amount needed for their physiology to support successful fission. Can you guess what it was?” Arjun shakes his head, rapt, and Leonard smiles. “Blankets.”

Arjun lets out a little cracked-voice squeak of laughter. “Really?”

“Oh yeah. We had those folks bundled up like caterpillars in a chrysalis, nice and cozy. And when the time came, _fwhoomp_ – ” He pulls his hands apart again. “Out they came, in healthy pairs, just like nature – or, uh, the gods – intended for them.”

“Wow,” Arjun murmurs. “That must have been something to see.”

“It sure was. Not something I’ll soon forget, I can tell you that much.” Leonard lets his smile fade as he considers his next words, weighing them carefully. “The thing is, Arjun, we were only able to help the Wopytoans because they _let_ us. If they hadn’t asked for help, if they’d decided to just ignore the problem and hope it went away on its own – well, they’d most likely still be in the same fix today.” He raises his eyebrows. “You hear what I’m saying?”

Arjun looks down at his hands, which are out from his armpits now, but still hidden away in his baggy sleeves, formless gray stumps tucked against his belly. “Uncle, this…this isn’t like the Wopytoans. This isn’t something you can solve for me.”

“Maybe not,” Leonard allows. “But I don’t suppose we can know that for sure unless you let me take a shot at it.”

Arjun doesn’t respond right away, and Leonard doesn’t push him. He’s asking a lot from the boy. He can give him a minute to think it over.

That minute passes, and then another, and another, the two of them sitting silently together in the bright midday sunshine. Leonard starts to wonder if he’s going to have to give up, try his luck with the other kids and hope one of them is more receptive. But then, just when he’s resigning himself to chalking this up as a loss, Arjun turns toward him, gingerly draws his hands out of his sleeves and holds one out between them.

“Thank you,” Leonard says, and means it. He takes Arjun’s outstretched hand, supporting it flat on top of his own so he can examine the lesions that extend nearly from knuckles to wrist. The skin is inflamed and scaly, thickened and tough-looking near the center of the patch, rawer toward the edges. Poor kid must have had this for ages, blistering and scabbing over and over again. “Does it hurt?”

“A little,” Arjun says quietly. “Less than it used to.”

“When did it start?”

“A few months ago.”

Leonard carefully flips Arjun’s hand over. His palm is a bit rough, but it’s nothing compared to the dorsal side. “Can I see your other hand?”

Arjun’s left hand looks the same as his right – almost _exactly_ the same, in fact, right down to the tendril of inflammation that’s started to spread down both his thumbs. What could be causing a reaction like this? Maybe some kind of allergy?

“You ever wear gloves, for field work or anything?”

Arjun shakes his head.

“Use a special soap for washing your hands?”

“No, Uncle. We use the same soap for everything.”

Leonard tilts Arjun’s hand slightly, inspecting the peeling over his knuckles. “You have this anywhere else, or just on your hands?”

“Just my hands, Uncle.” Arjun winces, his fingers twitching on top of Leonard’s palm, and Leonard lifts his thumb away from where it was resting near the border of the lesions.

“Sorry – am I hurting you?”

“Oh, no, Uncle,” Arjun says quickly. “I just have a…a cramp, is all.”

Leonard observes the pained twist to his mouth, the sweat that’s broken out on his forehead, and takes a guess. “In your belly?”

Arjun flushes, breaks eye contact, but nods.

“You get a bellyache often?”

“Sometimes,” Arjun whispers, his voice shrunk with shame.

Leonard slides Arjun’s sleeve up and lightly grasps a pinch of skin on his arm, holding it for a few seconds before letting go. As he expected, it doesn’t snap back into place, but stays tented, like a wrinkle in a bedsheet, only slowly relaxing out over the course of eight, nine, ten seconds. “Most days?” he asks gently, already pretty sure of the answer.

Arjun nods again, staring miserably down at the ground.

Leonard looks the boy over again, reevaluating everything he’s noticed in light of this new information: his dull, sunken eyes, his dry lips, the grayish cast to his skin. If this is a GI thing, that goes a long way toward explaining the lethargy and inattentiveness. No wonder these kids are dragging so much – they’re dehydrated, and their electrolytes are probably all out of whack.

What it doesn’t explain is the rash. Leonard turns his attention back to Arjun’s hand, the strange combination of desquamation and inflammation. What kind of stomach bug comes along with a skin condition like this? Measles can sometimes present with diarrhea, but this doesn’t look like any strain he’s ever seen before. It looks more like a fungal infection, or a bad psoriasis flare-up. Maybe it’s a food allergy? Some kind of autoimmune response?

“It’s because I’m a sinner, Uncle.”

Leonard looks up from Arjun’s hand to his face, surprised. “What was that?”

Arjun’s big dark cow eyes are fixed sorrowfully on him, brimming over with a kind of immense, defeated sadness a kid his age shouldn’t ever know. “I’m a sinner,” he says again. “I’m thankful to you for wanting to help, I am, but we both know there’s nothing you can do. Corruption of the flesh reflects the corruption of the spirit. Only the gods have the power to remove the stain of wickedness. A learned man like you must know that.”

Leonard just about bites through his tongue trying to hold back his first reaction to that. What kind of fucking poison are they filling these kids’ heads with? _Corruption of the flesh_? _Stain of wickedness_? For God’s sake, the boy’s barely growing peach fuzz yet, and he’s been raised in a community so strict and repressed they make Vulcans look like a bunch of free-wheeling hedonists. What’s the worst thing he can possibly have done – had a damn wet dream? Back-talked his ma? Slacked off for a few minutes when he was supposed to be feeding the pigs?

“I do want to be good, Uncle,” Arjun says plaintively. “I must strive harder to redeem myself. It’s just that I have these thoughts, sometimes… Or like earlier, you saw, when I disrespected Aunt Josephine. I try so hard, but there are moments I just lose control of myself, and the demon takes hold.”

The _what_?

Before Leonard can ask, Arjun rushes on, his face suddenly aglow with hope. “Oh, but Uncle, maybe you _can_ help me. You’re a good man, favored by the gods – the Mother said so herself. You could help me to be better, to strengthen myself against the demon’s call and banish the evil inside me.” He leans forward eagerly, clasping his lesioned hands together in a pleading gesture. “Would you? Would you help me, like you helped the Wopytoans?”

Leonard is dumbfounded. What the hell do you say to something like that? “Arjun…listen, I…”

“Please, Uncle,” Arjun presses. “I know I don’t deserve your help, but I…I’m _scared_. I’m nearly of age now. If I can’t earn the gods’ forgiveness before the end of harvest, I’ll be sent off with the other sinners, and then – ”

“Sent off where?” Leonard has an uneasy feeling in his belly, the kind he might get peeking over the edge of a cliffside path and realizing the drop is ten times farther than he assumed. What exactly are he and Jim sticking their noses into? “Where do the sinners go, Arjun?”

Arjun gives him a strange look, like the question’s so dumb he’s not sure whether Leonard’s messing with him. “To the purging house, of course.”

+

Leonard’s been waiting for near half an hour when Jim finally arrives at the congregation hall for dinner, swept inside at the center of a pack of Councilors. He appears to be deep in conversation with Sister Something-or-other, but he excuses himself as soon as he spots Leonard, weaving his way through the crowd toward him.

“Hey, stranger,” he says warmly, stroking down Leonard’s arm to take his hand. He draws him in for a kiss on the cheek and adds in a whisper, “Brace yourself – we’re eating with the Mother tonight. Any progress?” Leonard nods, just enough for Jim to pick up on. “Good. We’ll talk after.” He nudges his nose against Leonard’s cheek, kisses him again before pulling away with a broad, performance-ready grin.

They do wind up at a table with the Mother, which adds another dollop of stress onto Leonard’s already mountainous pile. She’s an odd one, the Mother is: almost regal in her asceticism, stern and aloof, yet radiating an unmistakably maternal energy that keeps her followers falling over themselves for her attention and approval. She appears to have warmed considerably to the Enterprise crew over the past couple days, but there’s a severity to her that even her infrequent smiles can’t soften. Little old lady that she is, she makes Leonard mighty nervous, especially considering what he heard from the kids today.

Jim, on the other hand, seems happy as a clam, relaxed and carefree – _seems_ being the operative word. He’s on at a hundred and fifteen percent tonight, bubbling over with charm and humor, quicker than ever with a joke, a story, a strategic bit of flattery. Leonard’s exhausted just listening to him.

He’s being so aggressively upbeat, in fact, that it occurs to Leonard that he may be trying to smooth over some discord that arose during today’s negotiations. Leonard’s so wrapped up in his investigation that he’s almost forgotten Jim’s busy with his own official mission. He’s been tasked with bringing Hearth back into the fold, and he can’t be having an easy time of it. The Kindred withdrew from the Federation decades ago, and they don’t seem to have the most charitable view of…well, _anyone_ , especially not Earth or the other Federation member worlds. Leonard doubts they’re all too keen on realigning themselves with a bunch of sinners and libertines.

With that in mind, he resolves not to begrudge Jim the flurry of touches, the flirting and eyelash-batting and coy whispers that have ramped up along with the rest of his act. Jim’s just trying to get the job done, by whatever means necessary, and there’s no denying that this wholesome little romance of theirs is a powerful card to play. Every shoulder bump or sappy smile serves as a pointed reminder that they and the Kindred aren’t so different, really, despite being on opposite sides of the negotiating table. In the end, aren’t they all just a bunch of gods-fearing, family-oriented folks muddling their way through the morass of immorality and wicked modernity?

Well, no. He and Jim sure aren’t, and Leonard’s got his doubts about the Kindred after everything he heard this afternoon. God, he’s _bursting_ to tell Jim everything he learned from Arjun and the others. Even if he weren’t doing this at Jim’s behest, it’s second nature to want to share with him any weird, interesting, or frustrating tidbits from his day – and this particular day has most definitely provided all three in spades.

He can sense that Jim’s getting antsy himself, anxious to hear what Leonard’s found out, and by the time the meal’s finally over and they’re all migrating outside to the bonfire, Jim’s patience has apparently run out. He’s the one to steer them firmly away from the crowd this time, both arms twined around one of Leonard’s, leaning into him in a way that positively screams _Do Not Disturb_. It’s not his most subtle display – but then, subtlety’s not really part of the product he’s selling.

Leonard takes a seat on the same bench as last night, expecting Jim to follow suit, and nearly swallows his tongue when Jim chooses instead to drop right the hell down _on top of him_ , curling an arm around his neck as he settles sideways across his lap. He lists precariously to the side while he’s adjusting himself, threatening to topple off, and Leonard grabs for him instinctively, bracing him with a hand on his waist and another just above his knee, cupped over the top of his thigh.

Oh, son of a fucking bitch.

By the time Leonard realizes what he’s done, it’s too late. He should’ve just let the idiot fall on his ass, but it’d attract the wrong kind of attention if he jerked his hands away now, and anyway Jim’s already laying his own hand over the one Leonard’s got on his leg, pinning him in place.

Leonard’s helped dig his own grave here; he supposes he’ll just have to lie in it.

He makes a second mistake in glancing around the crowd to see if anyone’s noticed. Of course people have noticed – everybody’s gawking at him and Jim, same as always, and don’t they all just look thrilled to _bits_ by his predicament.

He’s unlucky enough to make eye contact with Sulu, who’s struggling so hard not to laugh that he may well pop a blood vessel. If he does, Leonard’s going to take his sweet old time getting him back to the ship for treatment, that’s for sure.

“You don’t think this is a little inappropriate?” he grits out, trying not to squirm too obviously under Jim’s weight. Jim’s pretty trim, but he’s _heavy_ , dense with tightly-packed muscle, and, well, the way he’s positioned himself ain’t exactly ideal. The feel of him across Leonard’s thighs, lolling comfortably against his chest, curled into him and breathing hot against his temple – it’s all giving him the kind of thoughts he really does not need to be having right now.

It’s been a while, all right? So sue him if his downstairs brain takes an interest in the warm, limber body making itself at home in his goddamn lap.

“I think we’re a happily married couple enjoying an innocent cuddle on a cool night,” Jim says in his ear, sounding perfectly at ease. He pats the hand he’s got trapped against his leg. “More importantly, I think this is the best way to keep these guys out of our hair and have a private conversation without having to worry about eavesdroppers. Now, come on – I can tell you’ve got good intel, so out with it.”

Leonard wants to cooperate, he really does, but he just can’t quite manage it. He’s frozen in place, unable to relax under the sprawl of Jim’s body, torn between the logic telling him to push Jim away and the dumb primal instinct that wants to pull him in even closer. It feels good having Jim on top of him, _damn_ good, he can’t deny that, but it sure isn’t helping him concentrate. He doesn’t know what’s more distracting: the loose-limbed way Jim’s lounging against him, the firm muscle of Jim’s thigh under his hand, the heat of him, the way he _smells_ –

Yeah, it has definitely been way too long.

Jim shifts around some, blocking off Leonard’s line of sight to Sulu while simultaneously tucking the curve of his hip and ass even more dangerously into the cradle of Leonard’s pelvis. “Bones, seriously, the anticipation’s killing me. _Spill._ I can make it an order, if that helps.” His voice drops even lower and takes on a steely note of command, at odds with the softness of his lips against Leonard’s ear. “Report, Lieutenant Commander.”

That most definitely _does not help_.

Leonard forces himself to start talking anyway, if only to save himself from any more of Jim’s bright ideas. He tells Jim about his chats with Arjun, Mariam, and Elena, the sullen-faced girl he noticed this morning. Each conversation took a slightly different course, but enough of their stories overlapped that he’s been able to put together a pretty good picture of this mystery disease: the rash (referred to exclusively as “the stain”), the gastrointestinal problems, the fatigue, the mood swings. The symptoms seem to be fairly consistent, though they don’t present identically in all patients. Mariam’s rash looks more like a bad burn than anything, red and blistering. Meanwhile, Elena’s got it on the tops of her feet as well as her hands, and all the kids said it can spread to a person’s face and neck – a horrible sight, and a sure sign that the sufferer is soon to be sent off to the so-called “purging house,” most likely never to return.

“The _what_?” Jim asks incredulously.

“You heard me. That’s what they called it. All three of them told the same story. The stain shows up on somebody, a demon gets into them, and they get sent off to stay in the purging house until the gods forgive them.”

Jim drums his fingers against Leonard’s shoulder. “I have a feeling I’m going to regret asking, but what all is involved in this ‘purging’?”

“Hard to say. Supposedly you’re just sent to the house to pray yourself well, atone for whatever wickedness has brought the gods’ punishment down on you.”

“But…?” Jim prompts, picking up on Leonard’s tone.

Leonard hesitates. It was easy enough to shrug it off while talking with the kids in the sunshine this afternoon, but these things always look a little different at night. Sitting here in the dark, surrounded by strangers and the buzzing fields, the firelight throwing wobbly shadows on the tall, rustling walls of corn all around them – well, frankly he’s kinda glad for the weight of Jim on his lap, the solid shape of him in his arms. He’s a grown-ass adult, and a skeptic to boot, but this stuff gives him the damn creeps. “They said you can hear the sinners some nights, all the way from the purging house. Screaming, crying – _laughing_ , sometimes. It doesn’t even sound human, Mariam said. That’s how you know the demons have still got them.”

“Jesus.” Jim runs his hand along Leonard’s shoulder to his neck, following the seam of his uniform shirt. “What do you think they’re doing to them there? Exorcism? Or trying to get a confession, like a holy inquisition, witch trials kind of thing?”

“Maybe. It’s also possible that dementia’s a late stage symptom. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, of course, but with all this talk about behavioral changes, I’m wondering if we’re not looking at some sort of neurodegenerative disorder.”

Jim fidgets with the zipper tab on Leonard’s collar. “Those aren’t contagious, though, are they?”

“Not usually. I’m not convinced this _is_ contagious. With a limited gene pool like this one, it stands to reason it could be a hereditary issue. From what the kids were saying, it does seem to crop up in certain families more than others.” He fights down a shiver as Jim’s fingers leave his collar and trail up his neck, into his hair. “On the other hand, it might be a prion disease, which would explain why the real little ones don’t seem to get it – incubation period’s long enough that the symptoms don’t show up until they’re older.”

“Prion disease,” Jim repeats thoughtfully. “Like kuru or something? That would make sense – they called it the laughing sickness, right? Except, didn’t they get it from – ” Jim’s fingers pause in toying with Leonard’s hair. “Holy shit, Bones, are they _eating people_?”

“Let’s not go jumping to cannibalism just yet,” Leonard says dryly. “I’m nowhere near confident it’s a prion thing, and even if it is, odds are they’re getting it from the pigs, not brain tartare.” Despite the seriousness of the topic, he can’t help but laugh at the way Jim deflates. “Sorry to disappoint, kid. I keep telling you: when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zarkas.”

“Yeah, but you have to admit, we run across a hell of a lot of zarkas,” Jim points out. He traces a finger along Leonard’s hairline, ruffling his hair and raising goosebumps down the back of his neck. “I don’t know – these guys don’t seem to eat that much meat. There was some bacon in the polenta last night, but that’s been it, hasn’t it?”

Leonard shrugs. “Maybe that’s why it only affects a handful of them. Limited supply, limited consumption. That part’s easy enough to figure. What I can’t make sense of is the fact that apparently, some folks _do_ come back after being purged. Not many, but some. Elena said she’s got a cousin who was sent off and came back after a couple months, and Arjun and Mariam both mentioned they’ve known a handful of people to come back. Now, I’ve never heard of any kind of neurodegenerative disease that just clears up on its own, no matter what the etiology. As crazy as it sounds, there’s a possibility that whatever they’re doing to these people at this ‘purging house’ of theirs – well, hell, maybe it works.”

“Or maybe,” Jim says, taking the words out of Leonard’s mouth, “the disease itself isn’t actually fatal, the _treatment_ is what does them in, and some people just happen to survive.”

“Right.”

“I guess there’s only one way to find out.” Jim shifts his weight again, his thigh flexing under Leonard’s palm. “The kids say where this place is?”

Leonard lifts his pointer finger beneath the cover of Jim’s hand, indicating a direction to the left of the congregation hall. “Over yonder. Arjun said it was a ways past some old barn on the outskirts of the village. You go past a stand of trees they use for firewood, keep walking a piece, and eventually you’ll get to a big wall. The purging house is behind that.”

Jim glances that way, real briefly, before turning back to rest his head against Leonard’s. “Great work, Bones. I just hope all your sleuthing didn’t tire you out too much, because it looks like you and I are going to be taking a romantic moonlit stroll tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot! See? I told y'all we'd get there eventually.
> 
> Thank you, as always, for your wonderful comments. I treasure them almost as much as I treasure you, dear Reader. ♥


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes go for that romantic moonlight stroll.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some gross medical stuff. (Please, for your own sake, resist the urge to Google anything referenced in this chapter. I love you and I want you to be happy, okay? Life is hard enough without those particular images haunting you forever.)

“Well, that’s not suspicious at all,” Jim says, staring up at the wall in front of them.

Even if they didn’t already have reason to be wary of what the Kindred are up to, the wall would set off at least yellow alert-level warning alarms. Leonard hasn’t seen anything remotely like it elsewhere on Hearth. The village proper is wide open in every sense, without any physical barriers between fields or family compounds. There’s a simple split-rail fence up around the outdoor portion of the pig shed, but aside from the handful of (potentially prion-infected) hogs, there are no other livestock to be contained. The Kindred take a communal approach toward farming, so there’s no need to divvy up plots or demarcate property boundaries, and they’re the sole inhabitants of Hearth, so they shouldn’t feel the need to guard themselves from outsiders.

The strangeness doesn’t end there. Unlike all the houses, halls, barns, and damn near everything else on Hearth, this wall isn’t made of wood. Instead, it’s been built with what look like mud bricks, big sturdy things, plastered over with some kind of whitewash to protect them from the elements. And it’s _tall_ , a good four or five meters at least. This is obviously a wall intended to keep people on one side or the other.

Jim’s clearly thinking along the same lines. “Before I built a wall,” he says, with a touch of that obnoxious pomposity he and Spock tend to get when they’re rattling off some quote they think makes them sound especially brainy, “I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out.”

Leonard starts running his hands along the wall, searching for a join or some other irregularity. There’s got to be a door somewhere. The kids said the purging house is on the other side of this wall, and the Kindred are apparently in the habit of sending folks there pretty often, so there must be some way through. “You planning to quote your way through this thing, or are you gonna make yourself useful and help me look for a way in?”

“Neither.” And with that, Jim backs up a few steps, takes a running start, and launches himself up onto the wall, catching himself by hooking his fingertips into the crack between two rows of bricks. He takes a second to orient himself, then reaches up to get a new hold on the next row of bricks and begins pulling himself up.

Leonard really should’ve seen that coming. It’s a rare challenge Jim _doesn’t_ first try to solve by throwing his whole goddamn body at it.

Leonard’s generally a fairly vocal opponent of that approach, but it does seem to be working out in this case. Jim’s already halfway up the wall, scaling the bricks as easily as though he were making his way up a ladder, which means Leonard doesn’t have much choice but to resign himself to doing things the hard way. As usual.

“You know there’s a door around here somewhere,” he grouses, feeling along the wall around eye level for his own handholds.

“Ah, where’s the fun in that?” Jim says, not even sounding strained, and nearly gives Leonard a heart attack as he swings himself over on one arm to a different section of wall.

Leonard finally finds a couple of spots where the ledge of the brick feels a little deeper, sturdy enough to support him, and begins the slow, arduous process of hauling himself up after Jim. It’s a hell of a lot harder than Jim makes it look, but he’s not going to be too hard on himself for failing to meet _that_ standard. Jim’s the one who’s made a career out of getting into places people would rather keep him out of. Leonard would swear the man’s part gecko; he could probably climb the damn Tagruato Tower if he put his mind to it.

Leonard glances up to check on Jim’s progress and sees that he’s just made it to the top. He’d be impressed – if not a mite jealous – if he weren’t so distracted by the way Jim’s shirt rides up as he throws a leg over the top of the wall, revealing a telltale bulge at his waistband.

“Jim!” he hisses. “Is that a _phaser_?” It’s too risky for him to bring a tricorder, but Jim sees no problem carrying a deadly weapon? What does he think they’re going to do, shoot the poor sick bastards back to health?

“No, I’m just happy to see you.” Jim rolls his eyes at him from his perch astride the wall. “Of course it’s a phaser. You really think I’d drag you out to investigate a bunch of mysterious disappearances in the middle of the night without a weapon? What if they’re engaging in ritual sacrifice, like on Koad IV? Or feeding people to one of those giant pit monsters like they had on Blinta?” 

Leonard glares up at him. “Your pep talks could use some work.”

“Hey, you want to go wandering unarmed into a place called the _purging house_ , go right ahead. Me, I’d like to keep all my insides on the inside.” Jim swings his other leg over the wall and gestures for Leonard to follow before dropping down on the other side.

“Unbelievable,” Leonard mutters to himself. Still fuming, he climbs the rest of the way up the wall and heaves himself over the top – maybe not quite as gracefully as Jim, but dammit, he’s a doctor, not a cat burglar.

Back on solid ground, he resumes glaring at Jim as he dusts himself off. Jim lays a conciliatory hand on his shoulder. “Listen, if it makes you feel any better, it’s almost definitely not a man-eating pit monster. Turns out they’re an endangered species. So actually, if they did have one here, it would kinda be…” He trails off in the face of Leonard’s scowl. “Yeah, okay, never mind. The point is, I have a vested interest in keeping us both alive and unmaimed. You’re the one who keeps telling me not to do anything stupid. I’m just following orders here.”

Leonard flicks Jim’s hand off his shoulder. “You couldn’t have worn a holster, at least?”

“Nah,” Jim says with all the nonchalance of a man who seems to believe, despite repeated evidence to the contrary, that he’s made of cast rodinium and not fragile, breakable, _manglable_ flesh and bone. “Too obvious.”

“You are a ticking time bomb of natural selection,” Leonard advises him. “Don’t come crying to me when you shoot yourself in the balls.”

“Relax, Doctor Killjoy – the safety’s on. And even I’m not that flexible.” Before Leonard can get out the biting response _that_ deserves, Jim’s face darkens, his attention focusing over Leonard’s shoulder. “Bones, look.”

Leonard turns around, following Jim’s gaze. A couple hundred meters away, he can just make out a small building, blocky and featureless at this distance. “You think that’s it?”

“Can’t imagine what else it might be.” Jim pulls his phaser and twists the safety. “Come on. Stay low.”

The land on this side of the wall is untended, overrun with waist-high prairie grass and weeds. Leonard and Jim wade their way through slowly, Jim scanning their surroundings as they go, scouting for guards or any other signs of trouble.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t spot any. In fact, the closer they get, the clearer it becomes that the exterior of the purging house is completely undefended. Jim insists on making a loop around the building, just to make sure, but there’s no one to be seen. The two of them appear to be the only souls around.

Maybe they’ve come on an off night. Leonard’s not sure whether that’s a good or bad thing.

It’s been pretty quiet since they crossed the wall, no sounds beyond the usual nighttime buzz of insect life rising from the grass, but as they close in on the purging house, a piercing wail rings out from inside, stopping them dead in their tracks. It’s a harsh, feral cry, more like the scream of a fox or a cougar than a human being.

Leonard looks over at Jim, their eyes meeting in a silent _oh shit_ moment. Maybe they _are_ interrupting something – torture, exorcism, whatever it is the Kindred are doing to these people.

There’s a second cry, even louder than the first, followed by a burst of stark staccato shrieks that could be sobbing, shouts of pain, or even laughter. They’re impossible to identify one way or another with any certainty, and that’s probably the most unnerving thing of all.

Jesus H., no wonder the kids are so terrified of this place. If Leonard had grown up hearing sounds like _that_ every night, he’d believe in demons too.

The cries die down after a minute, and Jim motions for Leonard to follow him, looking grim.

The building is nearly as featureless up close as it was from a distance. There are no windows, just a single set of doors secured from the outside with a heavy chain and a couple old-fashioned padlocks. That sure doesn’t bode well for whatever goes on here, but it also adds yet another layer of mystery to the whole situation.

It wouldn’t make any sense for the Councilors – or whoever it is that runs this place – to have _themselves_ chained up inside, especially not without someone waiting right outside to let them out. That means there probably isn’t anyone in there right now except for the “stained.”

So if there’s no one here inflicting some barbaric treatment on the afflicted, what could have prompted the kind of screams he and Jim just heard?

Jim sets his phaser down and starts fiddling with one of the padlocks, jabbing at it with a pair of small metal doohickeys he’s produced from…somewhere.

“Where’d those come from?” Leonard whispers, trying to fill the foreboding silence that’s settled over them.

“What, the picks? I always have them with me. Never know when they might – come on, come on…gotcha.” The padlock pops open, and Jim pulls it off the chain and turns his attention to the other one. “When they might come in handy. Started carrying them after Jyldron.” He shoots a half smile up at Leonard. ”Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten…?”

Leonard shakes his head. Jyldron – of course. Yeah, would’ve been handy to be able to open a few locks then.

Jim pops the second lock and pulls the chain out from the door handles. He picks up his phaser and raises it one-handed, reaching out with the other to push the doors open. “Ready?”

Leonard steels himself for whatever gruesome scene they’re about to walk into. “As I’ll ever be.”

The smell hits him as soon as the doors swing open, a reeking wave of sickness and human waste. He staggers back a step, dimly registering a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye, the lights of the phaser moving as Jim jerks his arm up to shield his face.

Jim’s other hand lands on Leonard’s arm, seizing him in a hard grip. Leonard turns his head to check on him, the instinct overriding even the wall of nausea that’s just slammed into him, and finds Jim staring back at him over the bend of his elbow with shocked, watery eyes, as if to ask, _Are you fucking smelling this right now?_

Unfortunately, Leonard is. He automatically switched to breathing through his mouth as soon as the scent registered, muscle memory kicking in from half a lifetime of conducting surgeries and a whole range of stomach-turning procedures, but lordy, this is _potent_ , powerfully concentrated in the airless, confined space. He can practically taste it, feel it creeping down into his lungs like goddamn mustard gas, fetid and noxious.

Still, as bad as it is, he’s smelled worse. Compared to peritonitis or Fournier’s gangrene, the stench of regular old human shit is a walk in the park. He could do with some wintergreen oil, but he’ll survive.

He digs into his pocket for the pair of nanogloves he stuck in there earlier and snaps them on. “Don’t touch anything or anyone,” he orders Jim, who nods mutely, evidently stunned into docility. Leonard has his doubts about whether this disease is actually communicable, but he’s hedging his bets. Jim’s histrionic immune system reacts to the common cold like the damn Telurian plague; Leonard has no desire to find out how it might handle whatever the hell _this_ is.

The interior of the building is a single long room, maybe five by ten meters, faintly illuminated by the dull orange glow of the fire burning on the far wall. Unusually for the Kindred, the fireplace is covered by some kind of screen, the flames inside almost entirely obscured.

There’s just enough light to see that the walls are lined with low, narrow cots, about half of them occupied. Leonard scans them over, running a quick mental triage like he might in any other ward. There are about a dozen people here, a mix of men and women. One man is crouched in the far right corner, mumbling to himself, little snatches of verbalization Leonard can’t quite make out, but the rest are all lying motionless on their cots, seemingly indifferent to the arrival of two strangers.

Leonard steps over to the nearest cot, where a young woman lies curled on her side in the fetal position. She appears to barely register his approach, though her glassy eyes do follow him as he kneels down to her level. She’s got the face rash the kids mentioned, an angry blistered mess all down her nose and sweeping out across both cheeks.

“Well met, Sister,” Leonard says quietly. “I’m Brother Leonard. I’m here to see if I can help you feel better.”

The woman blinks slowly, her lesioned face slack and expressionless.

“I’m just going to take a quick look at you, okay?” She’s obviously not going to give him an answer either way, so after a moment’s pause, he reaches for one of her hands where it’s resting on the cot. She’s got the rash here too, much worse than what Leonard saw on any of the kids, so viciously inflamed all over that from a greater distance he might believe she’s suffered an avulsion, the skin peeled back to reveal the raw meaty red beneath. It’s spread all over her hand, right up to her fingertips; her nail beds look strikingly pale in comparison.

Leonard sets her hand down and leans in to take a closer look at her face. In addition to the rash on her nose and cheeks, she’s got crusted, scabby sores at both corners of her mouth – angular cheilitis. Shit, maybe this is a fungal infection after all.

“Where is she?”

Leonard’s surprised to hear his patient speak, and sounding almost coherent, at that. He glances up to her eyes. “Who?”

“Nora.” Her eyes slide away, unfocused. No, not coherent, not quite. “She’s a good girl, you know. Not like these others. Always first at her prayers in the morning. Papa used to tease, say I ought to be setting the example for the little ones, and here the baby’s showing us all up.” Her scabbed fingers twitch where they’re curled on the cot. “She likes to come over and lie down with me here. Like when she was a child and scared of the thunder. I’d say to her, I’d tell her, Nora, you’re a big girl now, you must stay in your own bed, but she’d say oh, can’t I stay just a little longer? I’m scared, Pru. Please let me stay. And I’d let her. I always let her.” Her gaunt, blistered face twists up in a sudden wrench of despair. “Oh, most gracious and merciful gods, forgive me. My sweet Nora. Our baby girl. Mama told me to _mind_ her.”

“You did,” Leonard says in the same calm, consoling tone he’s used on hundreds of grieving loved ones over the years, his heart breaking for this girl – because that’s what she is, he can see it now, even through the disfiguring mask of the rash. She can’t be a day over twenty, which means her sister is – or, more likely, _was_ – little more than a child. “You’ve been a good sister to her. This isn’t your fault, Pru.”

“No,” Pru moans, tears leaking down over her inflamed cheeks, trickling across her nose. “No, no. I ruined her. I put the demon in her. She trusted me, and I let the demon get her. She should have shunned me like the rest. Then she would have been safe. Oh, gods, forgive me. Pour out your mercy upon the soul of your daughter Eleanor, whose only sin was in loving this wretched sinner.”

She’s weeping openly at this point, her prayers devolving into stuttering sobs. Leonard can’t understand half of what she’s saying now – something about a great hearth, and more pleas for forgiveness, for her sake but especially for Nora’s. He rests a hand on her shoulder, hoping to provide a tiny bit of comfort, only for her scaly hand to fly up and seize his forearm, fingers closing like scabbed-up claws around his sleeve.

“She was a _good girl_ , Brother,” she cries, her voice shrill with desperate fury.

Leonard senses Jim shifting behind him, no doubt agitated by the outburst, and he raises his free hand to stay him. This poor girl’s not a threat to either of them.

“I know,” he says gently. “I know she was.”

Pru stares at him, her eyes bloodshot and wet, lit with the manic fire of delirium.

“Nora’s safe now, Sister. She was a good girl, like you said. She’s gone home to the gods.”

That seems to do it. Pru heaves a sob and releases him, letting her arm fall back to the cot, and Leonard sits back heavily on his heels. _Jesus._

“Bones,” Jim says behind him, sounding rattled, “what the fuck is going on here? What are they _doing_ to these people?”

Leonard tears his eyes away from Pru’s face and looks around the room, taking it all in: the thin bodies lying so unnaturally still on each cot; the man in the corner muttering to himself, plucking restlessly at his robe and beard; the bowls on each low bedside table full of runny cornmeal mush; the protective screen over the fireplace; that _smell_ , the distinctive foulness of unhealthy stool that he realizes now is rising from the uncovered chamber pots positioned next to each bed.

“Nothing,” he says dully. “Nothing at all.”

Jim barks out a nervous, humorless little laugh. “Yeah? You positive about that? Because that sure as hell looked like something to me.”

Leonard stands up so he can say this in a whisper, just in case Pru or any of the other patients are lucid enough to listen. “They’re not doing _anything_ , Jim. They’re not torturing them or exorcising them or anything else. They’re not _treating_ them. When people get sick, they stick them in here and leave them to die. That’s it. That’s all this place is.”

Jim’s face has gone blank, the way it often does when he’s processing something truly horrible. “And the ones who come back?”

“Anomalies,” Leonard says bluntly. “You were right, in a way – what you said before, about the treatment killing them. They’re dying of neglect, of dehydration maybe, or starvation, once they get to the point they can’t feed themselves anymore. The disease itself, whatever it is – I don’t think it’s fatal. Or at least, it doesn’t have to be.” He turns toward the next cot over, where a rail-thin woman is lying flat on her back with her eyes closed. “We’d better keep moving.”

They approach the cot, and Leonard crouches down next to it. He touches the woman’s arm, not wanting to startle her by grabbing at her hands or face first, but she doesn’t respond. Leonard moves up to her shoulder, shakes her lightly. Still no response.

Alarmed, he reaches up and presses his fingers under the woman’s jaw, feeling for her carotid pulse. It’s there, thank God, though fairly slow. So she’s alive, at least – for now, anyway.

In this light, and with the loose cowl of her robe draped over her in disorderly folds, Leonard can’t tell whether her chest is rising. He leans up to position his face over her mouth and nose, and is relieved to feel a faint exhalation against his cheek. Okay, she’s definitely still kicking. Now he just has to assess the depth of her unconsciousness.

Leonard shakes her shoulder again, more roughly, and says loudly, “Hey. Hey, look at me. I’m talking to you, Sister. Open your eyes and look at me.” No response. Not that he was expecting one, but it was worth a shot before moving into pain stimulus.

This woman has the same facial rash as Pru, though noticeably less scabby and pustular. It looks almost faded, actually; maybe that has something to do with the difference in skin tone. Regardless, it hasn’t spread up to her forehead, so Leonard doesn’t feel too bad about digging his thumb into her supraorbital notch.

And yet, still, no reaction – no eye opening, no hand movement, not even a grimace.

“Comatose,” Leonard says aloud for Jim’s sake. “She’s alive, but I don’t know for how much longer.”

He tugs at the cowl of the woman’s robe, intending to try a trapezius squeeze just to make absolutely sure, and is surprised to see a dark line of discoloration at the base of her throat. He lifts the cowl away with both hands and discovers that the discoloration goes all around her neck in a thick band, dipping forward a bit in the front, like an old military gorget. It looks just like the rash on her face, dark and scaly, but faded, almost as if it’s _healing_.

That doesn’t make any sense, though. The patient’s in a coma, probably mere days away from death without adequate care. She’s not one of the lucky few who’s going to come out on top of this thing. Why would the rash be getting better even as her condition deteriorates in every other respect?

Leonard tips the woman’s head up to examine the borders of the rash, and notices distractedly that she’s drooling, saliva dripping down her cheek. He’s moving his gloved thumb out of the line of fire when it occurs to him: cheilitis _and_ diarrhea? This is a GI thing for sure; it’s got to be.

He gently pries the woman’s dry, cracked lower lip down and peeks inside her mouth. Her gums look a bit inflamed, he thinks, but it’s impossible to really tell in this light. He wishes he had a penlight with him.

“Can you help her?” Jim asks in a hushed voice.

“I don’t know.” Leonard releases the woman’s lip and eases her head back to its original position. “Let me get through everyone and see if I can get a better idea of what I’m dealing with. Then we’ll talk next steps.”

“Okay,” Jim says, for once deferring to Leonard’s authority without resistance. He may be the boss on the Enterprise – and pretty much everywhere else in the galaxy, if Leonard wants to be completely honest about it – but here, in this room full of the sick and dying, they both know Leonard’s in charge.

Leonard spares a cursory glance at the woman’s hands to confirm that the rash there looks the same as the ones on her neck and face, then brings a fold of her cowl up to carefully dab the saliva from her cheek before finally pushing up to his feet so he can move on to his next patient.

+

It takes a long time to check over all the occupants of the purging house. By the time Leonard’s finally done, certain aspects of the disease have become crystal-clear, while others are more mysterious and confounding than ever.

Every one of the thirteen patients has the rash on their hands, in various stages of blistering and scaling, and the majority of them have it on their faces as well. The rash is unfailingly bilateral, striking in both its symmetry and its unusually well-defined boundaries. And while Leonard can’t fathom an explanation for it, there appears to be a clear inverse relationship between the severity of the rash and the individual’s overall condition. The most responsive, least emaciated patients are the ones with the worst inflammation and blistering, while the lesions of the three comatose patients all show distinct signs of healing.

Five of the patients have cheilitis, and of those, most also have some form of irritation inside their mouths: bleeding gums, inflamed cheeks, tongues so swollen they almost look shiny with it. By and large, these patients tend to be the most emaciated ones, most likely because they’re having difficulty eating. (Or even just swallowing, Leonard amends to himself, thinking of the drooling he’s seen in a few of them. Glossitis that bad could easily cause dysphagia.)

The disease doesn’t seem to present differently by age. The oldest patient here is a man who Leonard would guess to be in his late middle years, while the youngest is probably poor Pru. The youngest sufferer Leonard’s aware of is little Elena, just twelve years old and already presenting with a rash nearly as bad as some of the adults here.

The one point of disparity concerns the neck rash, that stark collar Leonard first noticed on the comatose woman. Only six of the thirteen patients have it, which isn’t so strange in and of itself until you consider that that number includes all six of the women and not a single one of the men. Leonard even went back to check Pru, who had thankfully fallen asleep in the interim, and sure enough, she has it too.

Leonard hasn’t the faintest idea how biological sex could skew this disease in such a specific way, which is probably why this particular symptom bothers him so much, nagging at him, prickling in the back of his mind like an itch he can’t scratch. What is it about the neck, or about women compared to men? What’s he missing?

Then, of course, there’s the shit.

The stench of it isn’t quite so nauseating anymore, as Leonard and Jim left the doors open to air the place out a bit, besides which they’ve been here long enough that they’ve just plain gotten used to it. But the state of sanitation is abysmal by any standard. Most of those uncovered chamber pots contain varying volumes of watery excrement, which Leonard doesn’t care to study too closely at the moment. A more thorough examination will have to wait until he’s got a mask and thicker gloves, not to mention the supplies to do more with the stool than just gawk at it.

The least responsive patients have been positioned over primitive bedpans, though the pans are all empty when Leonard checks them. He hopes that’s because they were changed out shortly before he and Jim arrived, but he suspects it’s mostly because those individuals are eating and drinking so little that they have nothing to expel.

“I need a tricorder,” he tells Jim, stripping his gloves off inside-out and poking them behind the fireplace screen to incinerate in the flames. “And a hypo, and as much rehydration solution as we’ve got in stock. It’s only a few trays, so you’ll have to tell pharma to synthesize more.”

Jim nods, uncharacteristically subdued. “What else?”

Leonard reels off his list as they head for the doors. “Better gloves – ask Christine for the kind we used on Meani V. Vials to collect stool samples. A laser scalpel – I’m thinking we may need to run biopsies on these lesions, depending on what we’re able to pick up with the tricorder. And a dermal regen. I don’t know how effective it’ll be, but it’s worth a shot.”

“I’ll send Aaronson up for everything in the morning.” Jim closes the doors behind them, shutting the house up again, and threads the chain back through the handles. He hooks one of the padlocks through the chain links, and then pauses, staring at the unfastened lock in his hand. “God, Bones. This is so fucking wrong.”

“Yeah.” Leonard puts a hand on Jim’s shoulder and squeezes. What more can he say? It _is_ wrong: keeping sick people locked up like animals, abandoned here to die slow, cruel, undignified deaths, cut off from the support and comfort of their community. As a man, Leonard’s heartbroken for them; as a doctor, he’s _infuriated_. But there’s nothing more he and Jim can do for them tonight, not without supplies. “Send Aaronson up to the ship tomorrow, and we’ll come back as soon as everyone turns in for the night. The rehydration solution alone will do these folks a lot of good.” He gives Jim’s shoulder another squeeze. “We’ll figure this out, Jim. We’ll get them the help they need.”

He should know better than to promise something like that, but then, making a promise to Jim has a funny way of working out like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Jim is counting on him to fix this, _believes_ he can fix it, so he’ll fix it. It’s as simple as that.

Jim reaches up and lays his hand over Leonard’s. “I just…”

He just wants to help them _now_. He just feels guilty about not letting Leonard bring any supplies down. He just hates the idea of being complicit in anyone’s suffering, even if it’s indirect, even if it’s only for one more day.

“We’ll figure it out, kid,” Leonard says again, and Jim sighs, shakes his head, and finally clicks the padlock closed, trapping the thirteen “stained” inside their cage for another night.

+

They’re passing by the old barn on their way back into the village when Jim grabs Leonard’s arm, forcing him to a sudden stop. Leonard looks over to see Jim pulling the phaser from his waistband, and his blood runs cold. “What’s – ?”

Jim shuts him up with a sharp gesture of the phaser. He’s staring blankly at the ground, cocking his head this way and that, obviously listening to something.

Leonard can’t make anything out himself beyond the buzzing chatter of the crickets and katydids, but he trusts Jim’s instincts, so he goes without a fight when Jim pulls on him, allowing himself to be maneuvered between Jim’s body and the barn wall. He can feel the tension in Jim’s back and shoulders, the pent-up energy thrumming through him, his whole body on red alert, ready for a fight.

A second later, Leonard finally hears it too: the unmistakable rustling of someone – or some _thing_ – making its way through the corn.

Unexpectedly, it’s then that Jim relaxes. “Human footsteps,” he whispers over his shoulder. “Only one person. And walking – not in any rush. They’re not after us.”

Leonard squirms free of Jim’s shielding body and pads over to the corner of the barn, in the direction of the rustling. He peers around the corner and spots a wavering orb of yellow light not too far off, an eerie glow through the cornstalks. “That’s as may be, but it looks like they’re headed this way. We’d better get while the getting’s good.” 

“No time,” Jim says behind him. “If we can hear them, they’d definitely hear us. We’ll never make it back without getting made, and it’ll look suspicious as fuck if they catch us on the run.”

“Well, have you got a better – Jim, what in Sam Hill are you _doing_?” In the five seconds Leonard took his eyes off him, Jim has somehow managed to unravel himself into a state of slovenly disarray: hair mussed, shirt collar unzipped and tugged off-center, the phaser apparently vanished into thin air. As Leonard watches, dumbstruck, Jim reaches down to yank his waistband down on one side, pinches himself hard a few times on each cheek, and then strikes out lightning-fast to give Leonard the same treatment. “ _Ow_ – what the – ”

“Kiss me,” Jim whispers forcefully.

Leonard stares at him, wondering for the second time in as many days if he’s managed to sustain a severe head injury without anyone noticing. “ _What?_ ”

Jim lets out a little growl of frustration. “Oh, for God’s...” He grabs both of Leonard’s hands and plants them firmly on his own body – one around his neck, the other at the small of his back – before shoving Leonard backwards the half-step it takes to slam up against the barn, pinning him to the wall with a knee jammed between his thighs.

“Jim – ” Leonard croaks, stunned, but it’s too late: Jim’s already falling against him, fisting a hand in his hair as he captures his mouth in a deep, heated kiss.

_Jesus fucking Christ._

Leonard is supposed to be protesting, he’s pretty sure, but he can’t formulate a coherent thought even inside his own head, much less force it out as actual words. Jim’s mouth is so hot, so lush, so _insistent_ – it demands his full attention, shorts out his higher processes to leave him adrift in the deconstructed muddle of his own mind, flailing for snatches of ideas and images that dart away like eye floaters when he tries to focus on them.

The man is just a _phenomenal_ kisser. Leonard’s no slouch in that department himself, he’d like to think, but Jim’s in a league of his own, as preternaturally gifted in this as he is in so much else. He kisses like he’s starving for it, like the world is ending, like kissing Leonard is the last thing he’s ever gonna do and by God he’s gonna make it _count_.

Leonard can’t make heads or tails of what’s happening right now, and he doesn’t care one fucking bit. He feels like his whole body has flared to life, blood singing in his veins, skin aching for the touch of Jim’s grasping hands, and then Jim’s teeth scrape just right over his bottom lip and the last pitiful fragment of his self-restraint crumbles into dust.

Look, he’s only goddamn human, all right? None of this makes a lick of sense, but it’s hard to convince himself to worry about that with Jim surging up against him, stealing his breath and his sanity, pressing him back against the wall with the weight of his own lean, powerful body.

He _wants_ this, wants Jim and Jim’s sinful mouth and Jim’s weight against him, wants everything Jim will give him. He can’t deny there’s a part of him that’s been hungering for this since Jim curled up all loose-limbed and heavy in his lap earlier – since he watched him walk across their barren guest room this morning in nothing but his skimpy black shorts – maybe even since that tender little earthquake of a kiss left him shaken and undone in the middle of the Kindred’s audience hall.

Jim’s been staking a claim on him ever since they came down to Hearth, touching him every chance he gets, hanging all over him, practically rubbing up on him like a cat in heat, and now he’s come for what’s his and Leonard is powerless to resist him. Why _would_ he resist, when Jim’s giving him everything he wants and more?

(Because of course it’s more, it’s always _more_ with Jim, this uncontrollable supercharged live wire of a man, who’s never found a thing worth doing that wasn’t worth wildly overdoing.)

No, he won’t resist, but he’s not about to just take it quietly, either. If this is really happening, right here and now, he’s damn well going to have Jim the way he wants him.

He tightens his grip on Jim’s neck, clamps down to hold him in place so he can regain some semblance of control, take back some of the ground he’s lost to the unexpected onslaught. Jim’s lips are so luxuriously soft, he can’t decide whether to kiss them or bite at them, so he opts for both, tugging the swell of Jim’s kissed-up bottom lip between both of his to lick and nibble and worry at it until Jim lets out a sweet, shaky whine that goes right to Leonard’s stirring cock.

Leonard’s other hand is still pressed obediently to Jim’s back where Jim positioned it. He lets it drift down just far enough to slip under Jim’s shirt, lingering momentarily over the tempting boundary of his waistband before stroking up over smooth, warm skin. Jim shivers at the touch, moans noisily into Leonard’s mouth, his fingers clenching in Leonard’s hair, and Jesus, Leonard’s so hot for him he can’t even _breathe_ , he’ll do anything Jim fucking wants as long as he keeps making those _sounds_.

He’s about a nanosecond away from grinding down against the hard muscle of Jim’s thigh when his feverish haze of arousal is abruptly dispersed by a very loud, awkward cough from somewhere off to his left.

Jim jerks against him in surprise and tears his mouth away, his pupils huge and black as he meets Leonard’s eyes for the fleeting instant before they both whip their heads around to see a grey-robed young man standing by the corner of the barn, lantern in hand.

“Brother Petyr!” Jim says, strangled-sounding, his voice somehow coming out both rougher and pitchier than normal. “Well…well met. Beautiful evening, isn’t it?”

He _planned_ this, Leonard realizes, the truth of it slapping him in the face like a bucketful of ice water. Of course he did. The whole thing started because they heard someone headed their way. Jim was just giving them an alibi. He was _counting_ on them getting discovered like this, caught out in a scenario just scandalous enough to be a believable cover. Leonard’s the idiot who got so damn caught up in the heat of the moment that he lost track of what was real.

Jim’s hand is still resting on Leonard’s chest. He must be able to feel Leonard’s heart pounding, the quick urgent rhythm of it, still so shamelessly eager for him even after the jig is up. He’s probably laughing himself sick on the inside, patting himself on the back for another game well played – but then, he’s breathing awful hard himself, his face glowing pink in the light from the lantern, a good deal rosier than can be fairly attributed to a couple of cheek pinches. And truthfully, his hand isn’t so much resting on Leonard’s chest as it is clawing at him, fingertips hooked into the slight give of Leonard’s uniform shirt in a white-knuckled crimp grip, like he’s four meters up a brick wall, clinging on for dear life.

Maybe, just maybe, Leonard wasn’t the only one who got a little too swept up in the moment.

Leonard suddenly notices that his own hand is still tucked under Jim’s shirt, splayed greedily over the hot skin of his lower back. He snatches it away like he’s been burned, mortified, feeling more excruciatingly exposed than he’s ever been before. He’d rather have been caught out stark naked and alone than like _this_ , fully clothed but tangled up so intimately with Jim that any fool could tell what they were doing, how desperately Leonard wanted him.

Jim draws back then himself, releasing his hold on Leonard’s hair and making a clumsy attempt to smooth it down into some semblance of order. “We were just…taking a walk,” he says lamely, fussing with Leonard’s shirt collar in a transparent attempt to avoid looking at Petyr.

“Of course,” Petyr says. Even in the flickering light of his lantern, it’s obvious he’s trying not to laugh. “As you say, it is a beautiful evening. However, I’m afraid I must advise you to retire to your quarters. It’s quite late, and Uncle Absalom is a famously light sleeper.” He inclines his head meaningfully in the direction of the nearest house.

Jim nods hastily, his face darkening even further. “Yes, yes. That is, ah, very wise advice, Brother, thank you.” He takes Leonard’s hand and starts to turn in the direction that will take them back to their lodging – and then, apropos of nothing, he turns back and says, “You’re to be married soon, aren’t you? To Sister Sofia, if I recall correctly?”

“You do,” Petyr says with a smile. “The ceremony is planned for next week.”

“Congratulations,” Jim says, sounding much more like the cordial, self-assured Brother James now. “From all accounts, she is a tremendously kind, capable, and virtuous young woman. You’re a lucky man.”

“I am, at that,” Petyr agrees.

Jim considers him for a long moment. “May I offer you a piece of advice, Brother?”

Petyr nods eagerly, looking at Jim with that same starry-eyed, worshipful expression Leonard’s used to seeing on new recruits and autograph-seekers. “Yes, of course, Brother James.”

“You love this woman?”

“Very much so.”

Jim hums approvingly, a disturbingly accurate mimic of the Councilors. “Then my advice to you is this: don’t let her forget it. Keep courting her after the wedding, and even after the children come. Particularly then. Don’t fall into the trap of taking her for granted, or assuming she knows how you feel about her. You have to say it; you have to _show_ it. Even the fiercest fire needs the occasional tending, isn’t that so?”

“Even yours?” Petyr asks, rather daringly.

Jim grins. “Oh, especially mine. Why do you think I’d be in the habit of inviting my beloved husband to join me in enjoying a beautiful evening like this one?” He offers Leonard a saucy smile, willfully blind to the glare he receives in return. “You’re a good man, Petyr, and I’m sure you’ll be a fine husband. Just take care not to let the hearth grow cold. Understand?”

“Yes, Brother. I understand.” Petyr pauses, then adds, a bit shyly, “I pray that the gods see fit to bless me with a marriage half as happy as yours.”

Jim lifts Leonard’s hand to his lips and presses a soft, deliberate kiss to the fake wedding ring. “We are both lucky men, you and I,” he says seriously. “The least we can do is properly cherish what we’ve been given, don’t you think?”

That awful tightness is back in Leonard’s chest, the confused snake nest of longing and uncertainty. This is as much part of Jim’s act as the kissing was, Leonard _knows_ that, he knows he can’t trust a single word that comes out of Jim’s mouth in front of other people, but Jim is just so damn good at blending fact and fiction, and Leonard’s heart can’t keep up. Even with the sting of the set-up still rankling at him, all he wants to do is tell Petyr to get lost so he can pull Jim close and kiss him again – no act, no audience, just him and the man he loves so goddamn much it’s _unbearable_ sometimes trying to keep it all inside him.

“Indeed,” Petyr says, oblivious to Leonard’s inner turmoil. “Thank you for sharing your wisdom with me, Brother James. I will not forget it.” He dips his head respectfully at Jim and then Leonard in turn. “Good night, Brothers.”

He turns to head back the way he evidently came, and just as it’s occurring to Leonard that there’s something kinda odd about that, Jim asks casually, “By the way, Brother, what brings _you_ out this late?”

Petyr’s ears instantly flame a brilliant, florid red, absurdly conspicuous where they poke out from his pale hair. He must be a real goody two-shoes most of the time – with a tell like that, there’s no way he’d get away with even the mildest fib or deception. “I…I was…seeing to the animals,” he says haltingly, turning back around with the expression of a kid who’s been caught with both hands in the cookie jar and a mouth crammed full of snickerdoodle. “I thought I heard noises coming from the pig shed, and I wanted to make sure the boars weren’t fighting again.”

“Ah, yes,” Jim says with a knowing arch of his eyebrow. “The pigs. Of course.” He parrots the words back in exactly the same amused, skeptical tone Petyr used on him earlier, and Petyr stares helplessly at him, knowing he’s been snared, but unable to figure his way out of it. His face has caught up to his ears, the tomato-red flush visible even through his scraggly blond beard. He looks like he’s praying to his gods for the ground to swallow him whole.

Leonard’s going straight to hell for enjoying this kid’s suffering so much. He does feel for him, but damn, is it a refreshing change of pace to watch Jim skewer someone else with their own words for a change.

Jim finally takes pity on the young man. “You know, I don’t believe it’s anyone’s business but ours that a few decent fellows all happened to get a hankering for some fresh air in the wee hours of the night. A brisk walk out in the moonlight never hurt anyone, did it?”

“Yes, Brother,” Petyr says hurriedly. “Er, that is, _no_ , Brother. That is – ”

Jim chuckles. “Relax, Petyr. Go see to those pigs of yours. Just remember what I said about keeping the old home fire burning, hmm?” He winks, and Petyr smiles weakly, still glowing red all over with humiliation.

“I will, Brother. Thank you.” Petyr gives them each another quick, jerky nod. “Good night, Brothers.”

And with that, he’s off, booking it around the corner of the barn, lantern swinging wildly in his haste to escape further embarrassment.

Jim watches him go, a sly smile tugging at his mouth. He’s got the remnant of a flush lingering high up on his cheeks, and his mussed-up hair is falling over his forehead and into his eyes, making Leonard’s fingers itch to sweep it away. His lips are invitingly full and dark, standing out against the pale moonlit glow of his face. He looks like temptation incarnate, and for just a second, Leonard lets himself wonder what it would be like to finish what they started: to pull Jim back against the barn wall and into another blood-boiling kiss, or maybe switch their positions, spin them around and pin Jim to the wall and take back that wicked mouth, press his own thigh between Jim’s legs to see what other pretty noises he might have in store, take him apart out here in the moonlight with only the chattering chorus of crickets and katydids to mask his cries.

Then Jim turns that sly smile on _him_ , and the fantasy dissolves into outrage as Leonard remembers how pissed off he’s supposed to be.

“You want to tell me what the hell that was all about?” he demands.

“Pretty sure that was me saving our asses,” Jim says, bending down to scoop up his phaser from its hiding place behind a stack of firewood. “You’re welcome, by the way. Unless you _wanted_ to explain to the Mother exactly what we were doing lurking around near the purging house at this time of night? Maybe have her send some lackeys over to check up on the place and find out a couple guys in Starfleet uniforms were just there asking a bunch of questions?”

He’s got a point, but Leonard’s not about to let him off so easy. “You’ve got seven days left, Jim. _That_ was about three different rule violations and you know it.”

“That, specifically?” Jim says innocently. “Making out against the side of a barn as a diversionary tactic? Funny, I don’t remember seeing that on any of your lists.”

Leonard glowers at him. “When this is all over, you and me are gonna have a long talk about following the _spirit_ of the law.”

“Oh, come on, Bones, lighten up. It worked, didn’t it? No harm, no foul.” Jim whacks his left hip with the flat of his hand, making Leonard cringe despite himself. He knows Jim’s long since healed, but Christ, the memory of that day on Dwaa... “See? Everything’s still in working order. I’m fine, you’re fine, everything’s fine. Besides, I don’t remember you complaining at the time.”

“Because your _tongue_ was down my throat,” Leonard snaps, the words coming out more harshly than he intends. He’s pissed at Jim for pulling the trick, but he’s even more pissed at himself for falling for it – and judging by the look on his face, he’s betting Jim knows it, too.

“Details,” Jim says with a dismissive sniff. He tucks his phaser back into his waistband and smooths his shirt down over it. “Now are you coming, or what? I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted. It’s got to be like 0200 hours already.” He flutters his eyelashes and adds suggestively, “And I gotta say, you really took it out of me just now, stud.”

Leonard feels himself going red for the umpteenth time this mission. “Can it,” he mutters, doubly embarrassed by how embarrassed he is over a corny-ass line like that. “Lord almighty. Why do I have the feeling this ain’t the first time you’ve gotten busy in a damn cornfield?”

“Hey, when in Rome.” Jim points an admonishing finger in Leonard’s direction. “And don’t go getting high and mighty on me, pal. I’ve heard all about you and Rosie Jackson in the pecan orchard.”

God damn it. “That was...different,” Leonard says stiffly.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Jim smirks at him as he reaches behind himself to zip his collar up. “I mean, I definitely never had anyone’s daddy chasing after me with a shovel and – what was it, again? A ratchet pruner?”

Leonard groans. “I should never have told you about that.”

“You should _absolutely_ have told me about that,” Jim counters cheerfully. “You should tell me every single embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you so I can torture you about it for the rest of our lives. It’ll be fun.” He slings an arm around Leonard’s shoulders and waggles his eyebrows at him. “Gotta keep the home fire going, you know.”

“Oh, shut up,” Leonard says, trying and failing to keep from rewarding Jim’s nonsense with a smile, and Jim grins triumphantly and smacks a loud kiss against his cheek before turning them both toward the path that’ll take them back to their guest lodging – and the least comfortable bed in the universe – for at least a few hours of well-earned sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said at the beginning that I was 90% done at 36k? Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. It'll be a miracle if the finished product squeaks in under 50k. These fools just have so many _feelings_!
> 
> Thank you so, so much for your comments. It means the world to me to hear that you guys are enjoying the ride. ♥♥♥


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Leonard figures it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that this chapter contains **potentially triggering content** (not of a sexual nature). If you're concerned, you can skip to the end notes for specific warnings.

It’s dark in the orchard.

He’s got Jim up against a pecan tree, pressing him back into the trunk, indulging himself with long, slow pulls at his mouth. Jim tastes like his granny’s hand-cranked ice cream, cold and bright and summery, and none of this makes any sense together but it all feels right: the leaves overhead rustling in the cool autumn breeze, the buzzing chorus of crickets and katydids, the soft vanilla slide of Jim’s lips, the anchoring weight of his arms draped around Leonard’s neck.

Jim’s voice is a low rasping tease, his lips moving ever so slightly against Leonard’s, shaping the words. “Do you love me, Bones?”

What a silly question. “I do,” he says, nipping at the plush curve of Jim’s lip.

Jim’s arms wind tighter around his neck. “More than Rosie Jackson?”

Leonard huffs out a laugh. “More than Rosie Jackson.” He kisses Jim’s cheek, once and then again, liking the scraping burn of stubble against his lips. “More than _anyone_.”

“Say it, then.”

Leonard frowns against the corner of Jim’s jaw, taken aback by the note of challenge in his voice. “Say what?”

“Say you love me.”

“I just did,” Leonard says, more confused than ever.

“No, you didn’t,” Jim says petulantly. “You went along with what I said. That’s not the same.”

Leonard strokes his hands down Jim’s sides to cup his hips, hoping to gentle him out of his temper. “Where’s this coming from?” Everything was perfect just a minute ago, the two of them crowded together all close and sweet, alone in the dark. What’s got Jim’s hackles up all of a sudden?

“I just want you to _say_ it. Out loud, where it means something.”

Now Leonard’s the one feeling stung. “Where it – ? Jim, c’mon now. You know how I feel about you.”

“Maybe I don’t.” There’s a hurt in Jim’s voice now, and Leonard never wants to make him sound like that, never ever, but for the life of him he can’t figure out where he’s gone wrong here. “How am I supposed to know if you’re too ashamed to say it?”

“ _Jim_ ,” Leonard says, appalled. How could Jim accuse him of something like that? “You can’t really believe that. Of course I’m not ashamed of…of….”

“Of?” Jim prods.

Leonard tries to answer, but the words won’t come. They stick in his throat, leaving him tongue-tied, at a loss. He knows what Jim wants to hear, he knows what he means to say, but he just…can’t.

Jim sighs heavily, warm against Leonard’s ear. “See?” He kisses Leonard’s cheekbone, forgiving even in his disappointment. “You know what I think? I think you’re scared.”

“I’m not,” Leonard denies, even as his fingers clamp down on Jim’s hips, clinging to him. _Is_ he scared? He’s shaken off so many of the fears and phobias that used to paralyze him, broken free of them one by one through all these years of chasing Jim around the galaxy, but he’ll never shake the great granddaddy of them all, the blood-curdling unthinkable terror that’s dogged him since the moment he slowed to a stop in the middle of a crowded shuttlecraft hangar and realized he couldn’t step one foot out into the nightmarish black vacuum of space without Jim by his side.

Toss him off a cliff, crash him down on an alien planet in a failing ship, strand him in the middle of a whiteout without shelter or supplies, beat him or infect him with Andorian shingles or rip out his fingernails – he can take all that, but he can’t lose Jim. He can’t. He’d rather die.

“It’d change things,” he says, praying Jim will get what he’s driving at without him having to spell it out. If he gives voice to it, that’ll make it real, and if it’s real, it could happen.

“Maybe." Jim doesn’t get it, though he should; he always gets these things. “Sometimes change is good.”

Not when it comes to this. What he’s got with Jim – it’s too precious to gamble with. Jim is everything to him, the sun he orbits around, his own beating heart. He _needs_ him. If they take the risk of bringing this quiet secret thing between them out into the daylight and it backfires on them…

He grips even tighter at Jim’s hips, digging in hard to feel the solid curves of his iliac crests. _I’m fine, you’re fine, everything’s fine._ “It’s just that…Jim, what if…I mean…” He swallows, wets his lips. “What if it fucks us up?”

“Oh, Bones.” Jim sounds so awfully, heartrendingly sad that Leonard wants to snatch the question out of the air, swallow it back down where it only pains him and not the both of them. “I thought you trusted me.”

“I do,” Leonard says quickly, anxious to undo this second hurt he’s managed to layer onto the first. “I do trust you, darlin’. That’s not what I – ”

“Then _trust me_.” Jim’s lips ghost over his cheek, grazing the corner of his mouth. “Just follow my lead. Same as always.”

Leonard kisses him then, desperate to make Jim feel what he can’t say aloud, to pour his truth into Jim’s heart, but it’s not like before. Jim doesn’t taste like ice cream anymore, there’s something darker, syrupy almost – like molasses, molasses and cornbread, steaming hot from his mama’s skillet – and he’s not kissing back this time. His lips are dry, unresponsive, and fear spikes sharp and cold in Leonard’s gut.

“Jim?” He tries to pull back, but Jim’s arms are tight around his neck, Xemetian strangling vines, trapping him where he stands. “Come on, let me – ”

“Bones…” Jim sounds all wrong now, disoriented and frightened. “Bones, it hurts. Make it stop.”

Leonard wrenches himself free of Jim’s arms, pulling them away by the wrists. Jim’s face is sickly pale, _deathly_ pale, his lips the same washed-out blue as his unfocused eyes. His skin is cool and clammy to the touch, pulse sluggish under Leonard’s fingers.

“Bones,” he slurs. “C’mere, lemme…just…” He’s struggling feebly against Leonard’s hold on his wrists, twisting this way and that, and suddenly Leonard’s hand slips and the skin he’s touching isn’t clammy at all, it’s _rough_ , thick and cracked like pecan tree bark.

He lets go in surprise, looks down to see Jim’s hands swollen and inflamed, scabbed over with black crusts of blood, skin peeling away in scales.

Oh, God, no. Please, not Jim. Anyone but Jim.

One of Jim’s hands reaches up weak and shaky, tree-bark fingers pawing clumsily at Leonard’s face. _Bones_ , he mouths. _Bones._

There’s a hypo in Leonard’s hand, and he puts it to Jim’s neck, depresses the plunger as gently as he ever has. “You’re gonna be okay,” he tells him, “I’ll fix this, Jim, I promise, I _promise_ ,” but Jim isn’t hearing him. His eyes are fluttering shut, his hand slipping down off Leonard’s face, and then his head falls back against the tree trunk and Leonard sees that it’s on his neck too, a dark scaly ring around his throat, like a collar, like a necklace –

Leonard’s eyes fly open, staring up at the shadowy rafters.

It’s a necklace. It’s _Casal’s necklace_.

He bolts straight up in bed, unceremoniously dislodging Jim, who crumples onto the mattress with a pathetic groan. “Son of a bitch,” he breathes.

“B’nes?” Beside him, Jim is woozily pushing himself up onto an elbow. “Wha’s the matter?”

Leonard turns to him and grabs his shoulder, giving him a little shake in his excitement. “It’s _pellagra_.”

Jim squints at him. “Huh?”

Leonard taps his cheek, encouraging him to focus. “Think about it, Jim. What’ve you eaten the past couple days?”

“You mean, like…everything?” Jim looks bewildered, but he plays along, still sleepy enough to be compliant. He knuckles at his eyes, his brows drawing together as he thinks. “Okay, um, last night we had corn fritters and hushpuppies. Lunch was chowder and cornbread. Breakfast was – what’d you call them? Johnnycakes? The pancake things. And to drink we had…oh.” He sits up straight, suddenly alert. “ _Oh._ ”

“Pellagra,” Leonard repeats. “It’s goddamn niacin deficiency, is all. The rash is _photosensitivity_. That’s why they’re getting it on their hands and faces – those are the places that are exposed to sunlight, where the robe doesn’t cover. None of the men had it on their necks because their beards protect their throats and they don’t pin their hair up like the women do. And it’s healing in the worst-off patients because they’re the ones who’ve been stuck in the purging house the longest, out of the sun.” His mind is racing at warp five, connecting all the dots. “The kids said their symptoms started a few months ago, remember? That would’ve been some time in the spring, when there was starting to be more sunlight and they spent more time outside tilling and planting the fields. In Georgia folks used to _call_ it ‘spring sickness,’ because that’s when it popped up every year. My God, if it were a snake, it would’ve bitten me.” He shakes his head, amazed by his own blindness. “Thing is, I’ve never seen it outside of a textbook. There hasn’t been a reported case on Earth in _centuries_. Once you know what it is, it’s the simplest thing in the world to avoid. We can fix this, Jim, _easy_. Even the real severe cases should start seeing some improvement after a few days of supplementation. And the best part is, we can make sure it never comes back. All they need to do is diversify their diet some, scale up the pig farming operation so they have more meat, or we could start them off with some chickens or something, maybe a couple cows for milk. Hell, they could even just prepare the corn differently, and that would – ”

“It’s all corn,” Jim interrupts, obviously not listening to a word Leonard says. Normally Leonard would be annoyed by that, but there’s something _terrible_ in Jim’s voice, a kind of slow-dawning horror that catches in Leonard’s gut like a fish hook and hauls him floundering out of his own thoughts.

He turns his full attention back to Jim, who’s staring down at his blanket-covered legs, his face an unreadable silhouette, outlined in silver by the moonlight coming through the window behind him. “Jim?” he says cautiously. What on earth could be the matter? This is the best-case scenario, a clear-cut diagnosis with a straightforward solution. Jim should be thrilled.

“They don’t grow anything else. The whole fucking colony’s a monoculture. It’s their _only crop_.” Jim rakes both hands through his hair, pulls at fistfuls of it like he only does when he’s about to fall down a bad spiral of torturing himself over something. “How did I _miss_ that?”

Leonard’s heart drops into his stomach as it finally hits him. _Shit._ He curses himself to hell and back, furious with his own carelessness. If he’d been just a little more awake, he’d have realized he needed to tread lightly in raising this with Jim, but it’s too late for that now. The horse has bolted, and no amount of fussing over the stable door will bring it back. What he needs to do is run it the fuck down before it gets too far.

Speaking of bolting –

Jim throws off the blanket, turns and swings his legs over the side of the bed. Leonard flings a hand out to catch him by the crook of his elbow before he can stand up. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To talk to the Mother,” Jim says tightly. He’s already sweating, the soft inside of his elbow damp under Leonard’s fingers. “She has to know, I have to _warn_ her – ”

“So, what, you’re gonna go bang down her door in the middle of the night? You’ll bring the whole place down on your head with torches and pitchforks.” Leonard knows better than to manhandle Jim in this state, so instead of tugging at him like he normally would, he relaxes his grip, lightly running his hand up Jim’s arm and over to his hunched back. “It’ll keep till morning. We’ll go see her before breakfast, how about that?”

“We have to go _now_ ,” Jim insists, his voice tighter than ever, cracking with the strain. He’s trembling under Leonard’s hand, coiled up tight as a spring and vibrating with potential energy. “Bones, I have to tell her, we have to _do_ something – ”

“Okay, Jim, okay,” Leonard says soothingly. Jim’s breathing is quick and uneven, much too shallow for his liking. “We’ll tell her. We’ll help them. It’s okay.”

“It’s not, it’s not okay, they’re gonna _die_ ,” Jim gasps.

“No one’s dying. We’ve got time to fix this. Everyone’s safe, and we’re going to make sure they stay that way.” He rubs small circles between Jim’s shoulder blades, trying to persuade his rigid muscles to unclench. “You’re safe, Jim. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you are, I promise. Just breathe, okay? Can you focus on that for me?”

“I – I don’t know,” Jim says, the words hitching, choked off by the crush of fear inside his chest. That’s how he described it to Leonard once: like there’s a vise inside his chest, screwing in tighter and tighter with every passing second, crushing his heart and lungs so that he half expects to look down and see his whole chest caved in.

He’s been dealing with the occasional attack for as long as Leonard’s known him, but they kicked into overdrive this past year, after everything that went down on Planet Q. For a while there he was having them two or three times a week, mostly at night, so that he’d wake up already in the suffocating, heart-racing thick of it. A few times he even got blindsided by one in the middle of a shift, to the point where Spock learned to discreetly comm Leonard to let him know Jim had left the bridge in a hurry and was likely headed to medbay – but it’s been _months_ since the last time that happened. He’s been doing so much better lately. God, if only Leonard hadn’t run his stupid fucking mouth –

“That’s okay. Doesn’t have to be perfect. Just do the best you can.” Leonard begins tapping his fingertips in a slow, measured cadence against Jim’s back:

One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.  
One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.  
One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.

“ _Bones_ – ” Jim moans, high and strangled.

“I know, kid,” Leonard says, sympathetic but firm, the way Jim usually responds to best in this headspace. “You’re all right. It’ll pass. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, you know that. Just try and breathe for me.”

One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.  
One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.  
One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.

“That’s it,” Leonard praises, listening intently to the strained wheeze of Jim’s breath as he gasps for air and forces it out again, trying to match the pace Leonard’s set for him. “You’re doing fine, Jim. You’re okay. All you gotta do is breathe.”

One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.  
One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.  
One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.

Jim flails a hand back behind him, fumbling, seeking, and Leonard offers him his own, the one that’s not otherwise occupied counting out his breaths for him. Jim latches on and yanks Leonard’s hand around to his front, clasping it between both of his and holding on _tight_ , his usual strength tripled in his adrenaline-fueled distress.

Leonard’s just glad Jim’s reaching for him at all, turning to him for help instead of retreating into himself. He doesn’t care if Jim breaks his damn hand, so long as he keeps holding on.

“Good, Jim,” he says as Jim brings their hands in against his belly, where Leonard can feel how he’s struggling to control his spasming diaphragm. “Try and push out for me. There you go. And again.” 

One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.  
One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.  
One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.

“I should have seen it,” Jim says hoarsely, the words poisonous with self-recrimination.

There’s no right answer to that. Leonard can’t possibly agree with him – he _doesn’t_ agree with him, and he’d sooner cut out his own tongue than say anything to twist this particular knife. But if he tries to console Jim, remind him that he’s not personally responsible for every single disaster that could possibly occur in or out of the Federation, Jim will fight him on it, dredging up reason after reason why he ought to be some kind of all-knowing, all-powerful superhero.

Either option will just get Jim more worked up, and if he tips over into a full-blown freak-out he’s going to start pulling away, and then Leonard will have a hell of a time trying to bring him down.

There’s no way he’d let Jim get away with that kind of talk normally, but tonight, in this moment, he has no choice but to let it slide.

One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.  
One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.  
One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one. 

Leonard’s back is cramping up, twisted around as he is. He slowly, slowly shifts his weight to arrange himself more comfortably, easing a leg out alongside Jim’s. Jim grips his hand even harder as he moves, but he doesn’t spook or shy away, so Leonard dares to go one step further and scoot in a bit closer behind him, hoping he’s in a place where the contact will ground him rather than sending him running for the hills.

One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.  
One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.  
One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one. 

Jim’s breathing is starting to improve. It’s not as deep as Leonard would like, but it’s good and steady now, pegged determinedly to the rhythm of Leonard’s fingertips. He’s trying so hard.

Leonard weighs his options and decides it’s worth the risk of adding one more point of physical contact. He curls forward a bit, careful to leave room for his hand to keep tapping, and gently settles his cheek against Jim’s shoulder.

Jim starts in surprise, and Leonard thinks for a heartstopping second that he’s miscalculated – but then Jim noticeably relaxes, pressing his shoulder back into the touch. A moment later, Leonard feels Jim’s head tip over to rest against his.

_Thank God._

One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.  
One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.  
One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one. 

“All right?” Leonard asks softly.

Jim’s head moves slightly against his. “All right,” he whispers back, his voice drained of the frantic energy from before.

“Good.” Leonard flattens his hand against Jim’s back and strokes down his spine, as far as he can reach in this awkward position. “You did real well, Jim.”

“I have to tell her.” Exhaustion drags at Jim’s words, but there’s force behind them, a faint echo of his earlier insistence. “The Mother. She has to know.”

“We’ll go see her in the morning. Soon as the sun’s up.”

Jim pushes their clasped hands into his belly. “You’ll come with me? To talk to her?”

Leonard’s heart hurts – almost literally _hurts_ , like Jim’s reached inside him and grabbed hold of it with the same bruising strength he’s using on his hand. “Yeah, Jim. Of course.” He grips back at Jim’s hands as best he can. “I’ll be right there with you. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay.” Jim takes a slow, deliberate breath, in and out, giving Leonard’s hand one last bone-creaking squeeze as he does so. “Okay,” he says again, a little stronger, and lets go of Leonard’s hand, turns around and just kinda slumps over sideways, trusting Leonard to take his weight.

And Leonard does; he always does, always will, as many times as Jim will let him. He pulls Jim in against him, relief washing through him as he feels Jim’s arms snake around his waist, both hands fisting in his shirt.

They’re past the worst of it. Jim’s off the ledge now, surrendering to Leonard’s reassurance. He’ll be okay.

“Fuck,” Jim says, low and muffled where he’s got his face tucked into Leonard’s neck. “’m sorry.”

Leonard rubs up and down his arm, forcing himself not to shudder at the cool, slick feel of his skin. “Nothing to be sorry about.”

Jim burrows closer, nose digging into Leonard’s clavicle, one clammy hand finding its way beneath Leonard’s undershirt to curve around his side. He’s always hungry for skin contact after one of these episodes. Leonard has privately wondered how much that instinct drove his old “fuck the pain away” approach, something primal inside him so desperate to touch and be touched, to anchor himself in the rhythms of someone else’s body. 

Leonard’s never mentioned this particular theory to Jim, and at this point, he doesn’t suppose he ever will. It doesn’t matter so much anymore. Jim’s healed up some over the years, learned how to carry the weight of his past with him instead of running himself ragged trying to escape it, and he’s turned to healthier ways of coping when it gets to be too much – first among them coming to Leonard, who’ll count his breaths for him and hold him close after and let him paw at him all he likes.

It’s not the least bit sexual. Skin-to-skin is a tried and tested therapeutic technique with a whole host of health benefits, especially when it comes to regulating vitals and mood. That said, it’s not strictly medical, either. Leonard sure as hell wouldn’t hold most of his other patients like this, but then Jim’s never been just a patient to him. He _loves_ Jim, and he wants him to feel safe, to feel sheltered and cared for. If his own body can be a source of comfort for him, all the better.

He looks down to where Jim’s face is smooshed against his chest, mostly hidden from view by the tangle of his hair. “Shirt off?” he offers, knowing Jim would prefer skin to fabric.

To his surprise, Jim shakes his head. “You’ll get cold,” he mumbles.

Leonard has to take a second then to focus on his own breathing, bowled over by an overwhelming wave of affection. He keeps expecting that one of these days he’ll build up a tolerance, so that these little throwaway comments and unthinking gestures will lose their power to knock him flat on his ass with how _incomprehensibly_ much he loves this man – but that day hasn’t come yet, and frankly, he’s not holding his breath.

He bleeds off some of the urgency by running a hand over Jim’s tousled, sweat-soaked hair, smoothing it back away from his face. “In that case, why don’t you lay down with me? Still got an hour or two till sun-up, I’d wager. Might as well conserve some heat under this itchy-ass potato sack these folks call a blanket.” Jim stiffens, and Leonard massages his arm, kneading at the tensed muscles. “Hey, I’m not asking you to try sleeping. We both know that’s not happening. Just lay on down and keep me company, okay? I’m not gonna be able to relax with you perched up here next to me like a damn gargoyle.”

Jim lets out a sharp exhale that might be a distant relative of laughter. “Okay.”

He doesn’t show any signs of moving, though, so Leonard takes it upon himself to ease them both down to the mattress, shifting so he’s on his back again. Jim curls up half on top of him, head pillowed in the middle of his chest. Leonard is pleased to note that his breathing is all the way back to normal now, nice and even.

“Bones?” Jim whispers after a minute.

“Yeah?”

Jim’s hand drifts up Leonard’s side to his ribs. “Does this count as something stupid?”

There’s a glimmer of humor in his voice, weak though it may be, and the last of Leonard’s worry melts away at the sound. “Nah. Your record’s still clean.” He pets over Jim’s hair again. “For now, anyhow. You’ve still got nearly a week left on your sentence, after all. Lord knows what you might get up to before then.”

“I’ve been _good_ ,” Jim protests, tiredly indignant.

Leonard smiles. “Yeah, kid, I know you have.” His thoughts flash to Jim shoving him up against the barn wall earlier tonight, grinding up against him in a blood-boiling frenzy, and he amends, “Mostly. I’m grading on a curve here.”

“That’s fair.” Jim yawns and scrubs his cheek against Leonard’s chest, shifting around to settle even more of his weight on top of him.

“Cozy?” Leonard asks dryly.

“Mmm hmm.” Jim’s fingertip traces a ticklish, abstract pattern over Leonard’s ribs, doodling on him. “You’re way more comfortable than the mattress.”

Leonard snorts. “I bet. What do you think this thing’s stuffed with, anyway?”

Jim slips his hand out from under Leonard’s shirt and reaches over to the mattress for a good feel around. “Old rags and crunched-up tumbleweeds,” he decides after a moment’s deliberation. “And rocks, obviously.”

“Obviously.” Leonard rolls his shoulders down into the bed. “I don’t know, I think you’re missing something. There’s a lot going on here. Pine cones, maybe?”

“Ooh, good one.” Jim gropes at the mattress some more. “I’m getting peach pits…peanut shells…maybe just a handful of dirty socks.”

“Golf balls,” Leonard suggests.

“Fingernail clippings.”

“Partly deflated balloons.”

“Broken glass.”

“Owl pellets.”

“Acorns. No, wait, not the whole things – just the little hats.”

“Used chewing gum.” Jim makes a gagging noise, and Leonard laughs at him, tugs lightly on his hair. “ _That’s_ what you’ve got a problem with, really? Owl pellets and fingernails are fine, but gum’s where you draw the line.”

“It’s been in people’s _mouths_ ,” Jim says, his disgust almost palpable.

“And you’ve been in the mouth of a giant pit monster,” Leonard reminds him. “Don’t be a hypocrite, now.”

“Ugh. Gross, Bones.”

“Well, you were, weren’t you?”

“I mean, okay, I guess, but you don’t have to _say_ it like that.” Jim draws his hand back and sticks it up Leonard’s shirt again, splaying over his belly. “Besides, it was just the one leg.”

“Is that right? Because I seem to recall dealing with gastric acid burns all the way up to your damn neck.”

Jim tucks his hand under Leonard’s side. “She was a messy eater.”

“Ah. Well, no wonder she liked you, then.” Leonard twists a piece of Jim’s hair around his finger, thumbing over the sweat-stiffened strand. They’ll both have to wash up before they go see the Mother in the morning. “You reminded me, earlier – I ever tell you about the time I ran into Rosie’s pa at the hardware store?”

As expected, Jim perks up like a dog that’s heard the jangle of the leash. “No, but I’ll forgive you if you tell me now.” He cranes his neck to peer hopefully up at Leonard. “Does Miss Geraldine show up in this?”

“Sure she does. It’s her store, ain’t it?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Jim says, with the same giddy enthusiasm he usually gives off after receiving orders to map some unexplored corner of the galaxy or initiate first contact with a new civilization. “Gimme the unabridged version, please. I want all the dirty details.”

So Leonard tells him the story, which is embarrassing as hell, the kind of tale Jim will still be giving him shit about years from now. But it’s a price he’s willing to pay for the way he can feel Jim finally unwinding the rest of the way as he listens, his muscles gradually loosening up everywhere they’re pressed together.

Of course, Leonard would much prefer for the both of them to have gotten a full night’s sleep instead of the measly couple hours they eked out between crises, but he’ll settle for this, lying quietly together on their fingernail-and-tumbleweed stuffed mattress, keeping up an easy, meandering stream of conversation until the room begins to lighten around them with the first gray hints of dawn.

+

A vaguely familiar-looking young woman is the one to open the main door of the Mother’s compound. “Brothers,” she says, eyes widening with surprise at the sight of Jim and Leonard standing there in the early morning gloom. “Well met. How may I serve you?”

“Well met, Sister Alma,” Jim says warmly. He’s slipped back into the protective shell of charming Brother James, standing tall and straight-shouldered in his captain’s uniform, the bags under his eyes the only clue that anything might be amiss. “So sorry to disturb you before breakfast, but I’m afraid we have something rather urgent to discuss with the Mother. Is she at home?”

“Yes, of course.” Alma opens the door wide and gestures for them to come in, backing up so they can squeeze past the round hull of her belly. “Isko, my love, run and let your lola know she has visitors – quickly, now.” A boy goes dashing off, and Alma ushers Jim and Leonard through the courtyard, trailed by enough kids of varying ages to field a baseball team. She shows them into a large room furnished with a number of sturdy wooden benches, a roaring fire crackling away in the typically oversized fireplace. “Please, have a seat. May I bring you anything to drink? My husband makes a fine avati.”

Nausea flickers across Jim’s face, there and gone in the blink of an eye. “No, thank you, Sister. Please don’t go to the trouble. We’re just here to talk with the Mother, and then we’ll be on our way.”

As if hearing her cue, the Mother sweeps into the room, little Isko hot on her heels. “Brother James,” she says, sounding surprised but not displeased. They’ll see how long _that_ lasts. “Brother Leonard. Well met. What brings you here at this hour?”

“There’s something we need to speak to about you about, Mother.” Jim glances around at the curious eyes gawking at him from every corner of the room. “Privately, if we may.”

The Mother shares a look with Alma, who hurries to obey the silent command, hustling all the children out of the room and closing the door behind them. Once they’re gone, the Mother turns back to Jim. “Now, what is this matter that has you so troubled? I can see by your faces that you have not rested well.”

For once, Jim doesn’t waste time with small talk and pleasantries. “It’s about the stained, Mother,” he says bluntly. “We have a way to help them.”

The Mother’s vaguely concerned expression grows thunderous as she registers the meaning behind Jim’s words. “That is not a matter which falls within the scope of your mission, _Captain_ ,” she says icily.

“Jim’s not the one who noticed it, Mother,” Leonard says. “I am.” He and Jim agreed not to drop the “doctor” bomb unless they had no other choice, but this part of their case is still his to make. “This ‘stain’ your people are suffering from – I’ve seen it before. Back where I’m from, people used to come down with a strange illness every year, starting around the end of spring. First they’d get a rash on their hands. It’d look like some kind of burn at first, but then the blisters would burst and dry, and they’d start peeling, and then more blisters would form over top of the old ones, until eventually their whole hands were an inflamed, scaly mess. It’d spread to their faces and necks eventually, sometimes their feet. And they’d take ill in other ways. Their bellies would bother them, and sometimes they’d get sores in their mouths, or their tongues would swell up so much they couldn’t eat. Most of ’em went crazy after a while – at least, that’s what people thought. They’d get real mean, or they’d start talking all sorts of nonsense, seeing things that weren’t there, attacking anyone who got too close. Any of this sounding familiar?”

The Mother is goggling at him, probably stunned to hear him speak for so long after two days of near silence. She pulls herself together enough to say stiffly, “I regret to hear that so many of your clan have fallen victim to the demons’ lure. The gods mourn when any of their children reject divine grace and allow wickedness to take root in their souls.”

“But that’s not what it was, Mother. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It’s not about wickedness as all. It’s about what they’re _eating_. You know I’m a research biologist for Starfleet. Well, humans are a life form like any other, and trust me when I say I’ve learned a fair bit about what keeps us ticking.” The Mother starts to say something, but Leonard barrels on ahead, unwilling to get detoured into an argument about humans being specially created in the image of the gods or some other such nonsense. “See, there’s this particular nutrient that our bodies need to keep working properly, and for most people it’s easy to get enough from their food. But corn just doesn’t have enough of it.” That’s not quite the full picture, but he’ll save the lecture on nutritional availability and nixtamalization for later. “Think of it as an imbalance. You’d expect to have problems if you stopped drinking any water or avati, wouldn’t you? Or if a baby wasn’t getting enough milk from its mother? This is kinda like that: your body needs something, and if it doesn’t get enough of it, it causes all sorts of problems. That’s where the rash – what you call the _stain_ comes from. It has nothing to do with good or bad, pious or sinful. The people who come down with this, they haven’t done anything wrong. You’re punishing them for something beyond their control.”

“I punish no one,” the Mother says coldly. “It is not for me or any mortal to cast that judgment which rightly belongs to the gods. The stain is the mark of corruption of the spirit, a soul which has rejected the gods’ grace. Those who prostrate themselves before the divine host and sincerely repent of their wickedness are spared, while those who wallow in their sin are ultimately consumed by it.”

“You _let_ it consume them,” Leonard snaps. He told himself he’d do his best to keep a lid on his temper, but Christ, he can’t help but think of all those helpless, miserable people he saw last night, their blistered and emaciated bodies, the absolute despair in their eyes, Pru’s keening cries for forgiveness. “You don’t even try to help them. You dump them off at that sealed-up tomb of a house and abandon them to starve and shit themselves to death all alone, without a trace of comfort or compassion when they’re most sorely in need of it. You kill your damn hogs with more dignity than that. And make no mistake, Mother – it _is_ your neglect that’s killing these people, every bit as surely as their sickness.”

“Neglect,” the Mother echoes, her black eyes flashing with fury. “You insolent child. You stand as a stranger in my home and presume to accuse me of abandoning my people. Who do you think tends to them in their decline? Who bathes them, changes their robes and bedding, scrubs their chamber pots? My daughters and I spend hours at the purging house every night, ministering to the afflicted, praying over them, helping them to eat what little they can, exhorting them to strengthen themselves against the demons that are driven to a frenzy by our prayers.” She thrusts her arm out in front of her and yanks back her sleeve to reveal finger-shaped bruises, long inflamed scratches, even what looks like a partial set of bite marks.

“Mother, I – ”

It’s the Mother’s turn to speak over him, raising her voice to make herself heard. “But you, stranger – you would prefer to imagine that I rejoice in the damnation of my people. I, who have been anointed to guide and counsel them, to shield them from temptation and keep them to the righteous path.” She shakes her sleeve back into place with an angry jerk of her arm. “The corruption of one of my children is a dereliction of my most sacred duty. I pray for them from the moment the stain appears on their flesh. I beseech the gods to intercede, to pour out their mercy upon their errant sons and daughters, that they might open their hearts to repentance and be saved. And when in time their souls succumb to the black rot of decay which my negligence allowed to take root, I beg the gods’ forgiveness for my failure.”

There’s no question she’s telling the truth. Laced in with her anger is honest pain – the pain of a grieving parent who’s lost too many children to count. She genuinely thinks she’s doing what’s right for her people, helping them the only way she knows how. Leonard just has to somehow convince her that what she knows isn’t the end-all, be-all of what’s possible, which would’ve been a hard sell even if he hadn’t pissed her off.

But something she said gives him an idea. It’s risky, but it may be the only way forward from here.

“Has it occurred to you, Mother,” Leonard says slowly, “that _we_ could be that divine intercession you keep asking for?”

“I will not tolerate blasphemy in my home,” the Mother hisses, advancing toward him a single menacing step, as if she means to drive him out right here and now.

Leonard shoots a questioning glance at Jim, wondering if he’s overplayed his hand, but Jim nods, backing him up. All in, then. “Okay, let me try that another way. Just…hear me out, all right?”

The Mother glares at him, but gestures curtly with her hand, waving him on.

“Right.” Leonard takes a second to mentally plot his course. He doesn’t have Jim’s knack for going off the cuff, but this is a familiar story, one he’s heard a hundred times if he’s heard it once. “So there’s this story my granddaddy used to love to tell, about a real pious man who lives in a house by the river. One day there’s a terrible storm, and his town starts to flood. But this man, he’s not afraid. He’s a man of God, after all. So he stands out on his front porch, water lapping around his ankles, and waits for God to save him.

“A neighbor comes by in her boat, and she tells the man to jump in, she’ll get him out of there. But the man says, ‘No, no, you go on ahead. Don’t you worry about me. God will save me.’

“It keeps raining, and the water keeps rising. It’s up to the man’s waist now. Another boat comes by, and the folks inside tell the man he’d better get in and come with them. And again, the man says, ‘Oh, no, don’t worry about me. God will save me.’ 

“Eventually the water gets so high that the man has to climb up onto the roof of his house. Yet another boat comes by, and the people inside really get into it with him this time, saying he’s got to come with them or he’ll surely drown. And once again, the man says, ‘No, you go. I’ll be fine, you’ll see. God will save me.’

“Well, finally the water rises high enough that the man gets swept away in the flood and drowns. He arrives at the gates of Heaven, and when he sees God, he asks him, ‘Lord, why did you forsake me? I put all my faith in you, and you didn’t save me.’

“And God looks at the man and says, ‘My child, I sent you three boats. What more were you waiting for?’”

Leonard pauses, trying to get a read on the Mother’s reaction. Her face is completely inscrutable, giving no clues to how his little parable has landed. She hasn’t started yelling again or kicked them out, though; that’s not nothing.

“Now, I know that’s a Christian tale, pretty heretical by your standards, but I reckon it translates okay. The thing is, Mother…don’t you think it’s a funny kind of coincidence that we’re even having this conversation? That out of everyone in the whole Federation who could’ve been sent to negotiate with you folks, you’d wind up with one of the very few people alive today who would recognize exactly what you’re dealing with _and_ know how to fix it?” He lifts his hands in an exaggerated shrug. “Maybe it’s more than a coincidence. Maybe it means something. I don’t claim to be any kind of theologian. All I know is, in my experience, prayers aren’t often answered in lightning bolts or voices booming down from the heavens. Sometimes all we get are people. Just ordinary old people, down here bumbling our way through this life the best we know how, trying to do right by each other.”

Leonard glances again at Jim, instinctive, and receives a tiny smile in response, a flicker of warmth that settles comfortably inside his chest. Encouraged, he turns back at the Mother, who hasn’t missed the exchange. Her dark eyes move between the two of them, maybe just a touch softer than before.

 _Now_ , Leonard realizes. If he’s ever going to break through to her, it has to be now.

“I misjudged you earlier, Mother, and I’m sorry for that, I am. I hope you can forgive me enough to see that Jim and I do truly want to help you. We all want what’s best for your people.”

The Mother inclines her head in the slightest possible acknowledgement. “I believe that your intentions are benign,” she says, no longer sounding angry – though not necessarily sounding real happy with him, either. That’s okay. Leonard doesn’t need her to like him; he just needs her to _listen_.

“Look, what’s the worst that could happen by letting us try to help? If you’re right and I’m wrong, nothing I do for the stained is going to make a difference one way or the other. And if I’m right, thirteen of your children get to walk out of the purging house and live out the rest of their days in virtue and righteousness until it’s their time to go home to the gods.” Leonard shrugs again. “Seems to me that’s a risk worth taking.”

The Mother stays silent for a long while, chewing this over. “What exactly do you propose?” she asks at last, perfectly neutral, neither accepting or rejecting what he’s said.

“Let me help out with the stained. I’ll give them concentrated do– uh, _servings_ of the nutrient they’re missing. They’ll all be doing better within the week, I guarantee it.” Leonard decides not to share the other, more recognizably medical components of his care plan. Somewhat ironically, in this case, what the Mother doesn’t know won’t hurt her. “Beyond that, I’ll work with you to make a plan for adding more nutrients into your diet. I’d strongly advise you to up your meat consumption – there are a couple different ways we can help you out there. And of course you’ll want to diversify what you’re planting. We’ve got all kinds of seeds and cuttings on our ship to get you started: greens, root vegetables, different types of grains, you name it. I’d probably recommend you start with a couple mid-sized garden plots with a bit of everything, just to get the hang of things and see what you take to. There’s space for one right by the school – I’m sure Josephine and Sofia would be happy to take the lead on it, make it a special project for the kids. As for mixing in other crops alongside the maize, Sulu – that is, Brother Hikaru’s got a real strong background in agricultural botany. He can help you decide on what crops will work best for you and develop a rotation schedule that’ll maximize your yields and keep up the soil quality.”

The Mother eyes him thoughtfully. “I will consider allowing you to attempt your treatment on the stained,” she says, making Leonard’s heart leap with hope – until her next words bring him crashing down. “However, your proposals regarding our diet, while well-meaning, are both misguided and unnecessary. The maize has sustained my people for generations and will continue to do so for generations to come. If there is an earthly reason for the affliction of the stained, as you suggest, I assure you that it is not to be found at our table. Do we not all eat from the same pots, drink from the same barrels? It strains credulity to argue that the very food which fortifies our strongest farmers is not sufficient to meet the needs of a child of thirteen harvests.”

Leonard hesitates, trying to decide how much pathophysiological detail he can get into without hurting his case. _Bodies are complicated_ doesn’t have a whole lot of oomph to it, but venturing too far into biomedical territory could cost him all the progress he’s made.

“It’s not just the stain, Mother,” Jim says suddenly – the first he’s spoken since they arrived. “You _have_ to diversify. You’ve got no idea how dangerous it is to rely on a single crop. You’re leaving yourselves wide open to pests or disease. You’ve been lucky so far, but you’re incredibly vulnerable. All it’ll take is one spore of the wrong fungus, and the blight will sweep across the whole colony – every field, every furrow, every stalk and leaf. Your food supply will be completely wiped out, faster than you can even imagine. You’ll _starve_.”

He managed to get through most of it with admirable composure, but he wavers at the very end, his voice cracking over that final word.

 _Dammit._ Leonard was really hoping they’d be able to avoid this.

He edges closer and nudges the back of his hand against Jim’s, a glancing touch, letting him choose whether he wants to take him up on it – and Jim does, instantly, grabbing Leonard’s hand and tangling their fingers together, the tension of his grip giving the lie to his apparent calm.

The Mother can’t feel that, though, doesn’t _know_ Jim like Leonard does, so she waves off what she undoubtedly takes as hypothetical speculation. “Such a thing would never happen here. The gods reward our faith and devotion with a bountiful harvest, more fruitful every year. The maize has never failed us.”

“Not yet,” Jim says lowly.

“Not ever,” the Mother retorts, with a decidedly patronizing half-smile. “I’m surprised by you, Brother James. I did not believe you so susceptible to doubt. You must have faith in the gods, my child.”

“Blight doesn’t answer to prayer, Mother,” Jim says sharply, making the Mother recoil. “If it comes here, the gods will be nowhere to be found. You’ll be on your own.”

“Brother James!” the Mother exclaims, shocked by this outburst of blasphemy from such an unexpected source. “How can you say such a thing?”

“Because it’s the truth. And if you’re going to singlehandedly condemn every living person on this colony, you’d better know exactly what you’re signing them up for.” There’s no trace of the jokey, good-humored Brother James to be found in Jim now. His face has gone blank, his words clipped and cold. “You’re so sure that the stain is a sign of corruption, of the gods’ disfavor. What happens when the decay’s not in the flesh or the soul, but in the soil beneath your feet? Is that a sign of the gods’ will, too? Because I’ll tell you right now, Mother – if famine comes to Hearth, it’s coming for all of you. It won’t discriminate. It’ll take the good right with the bad. Brothers and Sisters, young and old. Whole families. Children.” His voice trembles again. “It’ll take so many children. Sister Josephine’s students. Isko and the rest of your grandchildren. Even the child in Alma’s belly. She thinks it’s a girl, finally. You know that, don’t you?”

The Mother nods dazedly. She’s staring wide-eyed at Jim like she’s never seen him before.

“So tell me, Mother,” Jim says, harder and colder still. “When the stain starts to spread through your fields, when the leaves blacken and wither and the roots rot in the soil – will you accept the gods’ judgment then? Will you stand before your children in the congregation hall and tell them they’ve all been damned as sinners? Will you believe, in your heart of hearts, that each and every one of them has earned their fate? Or will you look into their crying little faces and think to yourself that maybe, just maybe, some of them might be innocent? That this one time, the gods might have made a mistake?” He raises his eyebrows. “But the gods don’t make mistakes, do they? Which means maybe the mistake lay with you. Maybe you should have opened your heart to what they were trying to tell you.”

“Brother James…” the Mother tries, hushed and tentative, uncertain.

“You’ll kill the pigs first, obviously,” Jim says, ignoring her. “There won’t be enough corn left to keep feeding them, anyway, so you might as well eat them while they’ve still got some meat on their bones. That’ll last you a while, but not long enough. You’ve got six, seven hogs now? With the size of your clan, they’ll keep you all fed for a week, maybe two. After that, you’ll be back in the same place you started.

“You’ll have already ripped out the dead plants and burned the fields, replanted with the little bit of seed you still have socked away, hoping maybe it’ll be a late winter and you can get at least a few rows to harvest before the freeze. But the corn won’t grow, not this year. You’ll be starting to think it might not ever grow again. If you ask me, instead of wasting your energy on field work, you’d be better off following the kids’ example, getting down on your hands and knees to go hunting for insects. They’re not actually so bad, if you’re hungry enough, but they’re _fast_ , and you need so many to make that pain in your gut go away. Soon enough you won’t have the energy to chase them anymore. There won’t be many left, anyway. They’ll be starving to death, too, just like you.

“By this point you’ll be desperate. You’ll stick anything you can in a pot and boil it, try to make believe it’s food: the pigskin from your boots, pieces of your robe, anything at all. If it were just you, maybe you could try to bear it, accept your fate – but it’s the _children_. They won’t stop begging you for something to eat. They’ll be so thin, wasting away in front of your eyes – until they start to swell. That’s worse. That’s when you know they’re not going to make it.

“You won’t tell them that, of course. You’ll keep pretending everything’s going to be okay, even as the girls’ hair is coming out in clumps in your hands when you try to put it up for them. Even as their legs swell up so badly they can hardly walk. Even as you notice that they have hair in places they didn’t have it before, like fur almost, their skinny little bodies trying so hard to keep from freezing. Oh, they’re _so_ cold, Mother. You’ve never felt anything like it. Like your blood’s turned to ice and you’ll never be warm again.”

Leonard’s going to be fucking sick.

He knows all of this in an abstract kind of way – historically, medically, little bits and pieces from what Jim has let slip over the years – but Jim’s never laid himself open like this before, not even to him. Jim’s not just recounting the facts; no, he’s _weaponizing_ his own pain, digging out raw fistfuls of his deep-buried trauma and dragging them up out into the light to throw in the Mother’s face. It’s worse than Leonard even imagined, and worse still to hear how _fresh_ it sounds, how easily all the gruesome details spill out of Jim’s mouth. 

Leonard doesn’t realize how hard he’s gripping Jim’s hand until he feels Jim’s thumb stroking slowly back and forth along his index finger – such a sweet, soothing touch, a stark contrast to the harshness of his words.

Ridiculously, that’s what makes Leonard’s eyes start to burn.

“They’ll tell you that, Mother,” Jim is saying. “How cold they are, how tired, how _hungry_. They’ll beg and beg and _beg_ you for something to eat, but you’ll have nothing to give them. And then, one by one, they’ll stop begging.” His voice drops down low. “And when the first of them dies, you’ll see how the others look at his body.”

The Mother inhales sharply. Her eyes are wet now, glassy in the firelight.

For his part, Leonard doesn’t know whether he wants to cry or vomit or _scream_ at the horror of it. He’s teetering on the brink of all three, held back only by that gentle, gentle sweep of Jim’s thumb along his finger.

“That’s what you have to understand,” Jim says, slightly softer now. “Famine isn’t satisfied with just killing its victims. It destroys them first, turns them into animals. Into _monsters_. You may think you’ve seen demons, but you’ve never known evil – true evil, the kind that’s hidden deep down at the bottom of your soul, a tiny little ungerminated seed you hope never gets the chance to grow. Most of the time, it doesn’t. If we’re lucky, we go our whole lives without learning whether it’s inside us, inside the people we love.” He tugs Leonard’s hand closer to him, holding it against the warmth of his thigh. It’s not so different from the way he pressed their hands into his belly earlier, but this time, Leonard’s not sure whether it’s more for his comfort or Jim’s. “I hope you stay lucky, Mother. Because you’ll never forget that look in their eyes. I promise you that.”

The Mother comes a few steps toward them, slow and cautious, like someone closing in on a wounded animal. She’s probably worried about setting Jim off again, but it’s Leonard who tenses up, hackling at her approach. He has to consciously stop himself from hauling Jim back out of reach, some irrational lizard-brain instinct screaming at him to get Jim out of harm’s way, away from this little old woman who’s already got him so upset.

But Jim’s never been one to back down from a threat. Hell, he’ll throw his whole goddamn body at it if it means a chance at saving lives. He’s faced down warlords and genocidal maniacs and powered-up Klingon destroyers without flinching, and he stands his ground now, as the Mother lays her thin, crepe-papery hand against his cheek and gazes up at him with those piercing black eyes.

“My dear child,” she murmurs. “How the gods have tested you.”

Jim doesn’t snap back at that like Leonard expects. “You’d do anything to save your children, wouldn’t you,” he says instead, not really a question. “If it came to that. You’d trade your life for theirs, take all their pain on yourself to spare them that suffering.”

The Mother nods. “I would.”

“You won’t be able to. It’ll be too late. But you can do it now.” Jim looks down at the Mother with compassion in his eyes, thawed of his earlier coldness. “Let us help you, Mother. Now, when the only thing you have to lose is your pride.”

“Pride,” the Mother repeats contemplatively. She drops her hand from Jim’s face and shakes her head, rueful. “Truly there is no more insidious sin, as even to believe oneself completely humbled is to invite the shadow of arrogance back into the soul. I am grateful to you both for reminding me that the pursuit of true humility must by its very nature be a self-critical endeavor. We must strive for it unceasingly, above all other personal virtues. For, indeed, _humilitas homines sanctis angelis similes facit_ – ”

“ – _et superbia ex angelis demones facit_ ,” Jim concludes.

The Mother rewards him with a small nod of approval. She turns away, the over-long hem of her robe dragging along the floor behind her as she moves toward the fireplace. “A wise man, Augustine of Hippo. Misguided in his understanding of the divine, like all the ancient monotheists, but wise.” She stops before the fire, her shadow cast out long and spindly across the floor behind her, reaching almost to the opposite wall. Gazing into the flames, she folds her arms together inside her baggy sleeves and sighs. “My heart is open, child. Tell me what you would have me do.”

Unseen by the Mother, Jim’s shoulders sag in relief for just a moment before squaring up again. “Leonard will take charge of the purging house,” he says, his commanding captain’s tone coming out for the first time this mission. “You’ll give him free rein in healing all those afflicted with the stain, and you’ll assign two people to be trained in this treatment in case it ever reoccurs in the future. And you’ll appoint a committee of your most experienced farmers to work with Hikaru, Leonard, and other specialists from our science corps as needed to develop a plan for diversifying your crops and ensuring that your people’s nutritional needs are being met.”

“Very well,” the Mother says. “I will speak to the rest of the Council. We will convene after breakfast to discuss how best to proceed in these matters.” She turns her head and looks back over her shoulder. “Brother Leonard, I deliver the stained into your hands. You may administer your treatment as you see fit. Any resources or assistance you require are yours; you need only ask.”

Leonard bows his head. “Thank you, Mother.”

“It is I who must thank you. And you, Brother James.” She goes quiet for a long moment, her eyes fixed once more on Jim’s face. When she speaks again, her voice is as soft as Leonard’s ever heard it. “May the gods grant you peace, my child.”

Jim’s hand tightens around Leonard’s in a gentle squeeze, contracting and relaxing. “They have, Mother.”

She gives one of her faint, thin-lipped smiles and turns back to the fire. It’s a clear dismissal, so Jim and Leonard quietly make their way toward the door, leaving her to her thoughts: a tiny old woman at her hearth, her shadow stretching out impossibly tall behind her.

+

Leonard pulls Jim in for a hug as soon as the compound door closes behind them. Jim surrenders easily to it, sinking into Leonard’s arms like his strings have been cut, his head dropping heavily onto Leonard’s shoulder.

Leonard brings a hand up to cup Jim’s head. “All right?”

Jim nods but doesn’t say anything, just tucks in closer, burying his face against the join of Leonard’s neck and shoulder.

“All right,” Leonard says again, since Jim won’t. He wraps him up that little bit tighter and lets him hide, closing his eyes to focus on the shape of him in his arms: not a sick, starving child, swollen up with edema or downy with lanugo, but a grown man, tall and broad-shouldered and strong.

(Oh, but there are still traces of that child, if you know where to look for them – in the eight centimeters’ difference between Jim’s height and George Kirk’s; in the immune system that reacts to the common cold like the Telurian plague; in the bones that snap and fracture as easily as an old man’s.)

Eventually, Jim pulls back, blinking against the glare of the sunlight that’s just starting to spill over top of the corn in the bordering field. It’s the same sunlight that’s hurt so many people, burned and blistered their skin, condemned them to slow, miserable deaths locked away like animals in a windowless house – and now it’ll be what helps to grow the crops that will save anyone else from ever again suffering that fate.

“Thank you,” Jim says, his eyes gleaming a clear, unclouded crystal blue. “For everything in there, and for figuring it out. I don’t think I’ve said that yet.”

Leonard pats him on the shoulder. “No need to thank me. It is what you brought me down for, after all.”

Jim offers him a weak, half-baked smile. “Yeah. Right.” It’s not his most convincing performance, but he’s had a hell of a day so far; Leonard can cut him a little slack if he’s not quite up to his usual energy yet. “Still. Thank you, Bones. I know this, all of this – it was asking a lot.”

It was. These past couple days have been beyond stressful, nerve-wracking and uncomfortable and confusing and exhausting – and yet, seeing the gratitude written so plainly across Jim’s tired face, Leonard finds that he can’t bring himself to regret a single second of it.

“Ah, I don’t know,” he says lightly. “It wasn’t all bad, I guess.”

Jim smiles, a true smile this time, bright and warm. “Yeah?” He links his arm through Leonard’s, the usual spark of trouble back in his eyes. “So on a scale of Risa to – ”

“Jim, so help me God, if you say ‘mole people’ again, one of us is gonna end this mission as a widower.”

Jim holds up his hands in a show of innocence. “Whoa, hey, that was all you, buddy.” He starts walking, towing Leonard along the path that’ll take them to the congregation hall. “Why do you keep bringing them up, anyway? It’s like you’re obsessed with them or something.”

Leonard kicks him in the ankle, simultaneously drawing Jim’s arm in tight against his side to steady him, make sure he doesn’t actually fall. “You know what? I changed my mind. It _was_ all bad. Horrific. This, right here – you just ruined the whole thing.”

“Nope, too late,” Jim says happily, waving to a cluster of giggly kids passing them by on the path. “You had a great time here. Secret’s out. You can’t go changing your story now.”

“Oh, _I_ can’t change the story? Mr. ‘Truth-in-masquerade’ is suddenly a stickler for historical accuracy?”

“That was different,” Jim drawls, badly mimicking Leonard’s defense from – lord, was that just last night? It feels like days have passed since then, but it can’t have been more than a few hours ago.

“And _that_ was terrible. Just embarrassing.” Leonard clicks his tongue, shaking his head sadly. “Eleven years and you still can’t get my accent right. I thought you were supposed to be some kind of genius or something.”

“I am,” Jim says, modest as ever. “Smart enough to keep you around, aren’t I?”

It’s a nice little bit of flattery, but Leonard can’t resist tweaking him one more time. “Well, _I_ never claimed to be all that bright.”

“Ouch.” Jim pinches his arm through his sleeve. “Man, I can’t wait until we get your grumpy ass back to coffee.”

“You and me both, kid,” Leonard says with a sigh, thinkingly longingly (for possibly the first time ever) of the Enterprise’s food synthesizers and the steaming mugs of flat, watery sludge they dispense.

“Maybe I could get Aaronson to sneak a thermos down,” Jim muses. “Especially since you know she’s going to be taking the opportunity to chug a few cups while she’s up there. Can you put a note in her chart to have someone talk to her about her caffeine intake the next time she comes in? I seriously think she’s got a problem – and _I’m_ saying that. I swear, she was even meaner than you yesterday. Did I tell you what she said to Uncle Jeremiah during negotiations? He’d gone off on this long-winded rant about how the Fourth Guarantee doesn’t do enough to safeguard religious freedoms when it comes to colonial governance, and…”

It might just be the talk of coffee, but Leonard’s exhaustion is catching up to him all of a sudden. He feels like he could lay down here in the middle of the path and doze right off. Hopefully he’ll get a second wind once he gets some food in him, since he very much doubts he’ll have time for a nap today. For now, he listens with half an ear to Jim’s chatter, sleepy and sun-warmed, his arm hooked comfortably through Jim’s – and, as always, he lets himself be led wherever Jim wants to take him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings for a panic attack, references to past trauma (Tarsus IV), and fairly graphic discussion of starvation and death, including and especially of children. You can shoot me a message on[Tumblr](https://fireinmywoods.tumblr.com) if you want a brief summary of any of those parts of the chapter.**
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> Pellagra holds a special place in my heart as the first epidemiological case study I was ever assigned - and, not unlike Bones, it took me way too long to figure out, especially considering that I was living in the American South at the time and _specialized in micronutrient malnutrition_.
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> Historically, pellagra was a uniquely cruel disease: so incredibly simple to prevent or cure, but badly misunderstood for a very long time, which contributed to immense suffering among some of the poorest and most marginalized members of society. The Kindred's handling of the stained is not dissimilar to how real pellagra sufferers were feared, shunned, and institutionalized. (Yes, I am a lot of fun at cocktail parties, thank you for asking.)
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> As always, thank you so much for your kind, funny, and insightful comments. We've gotten through the darkest part of this story, and I promise you, things will only get better from here on out. ♥


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there’s a wedding, a dance, and a certain first officer who needs to learn to mind his own Vulcan business.

Leonard spends the next several days absolutely swamped.

His first task after breakfast is always to check in with Arjun, Elena, Mariam, and each of the other four kids he originally noticed weren’t looking so hot. As he suspected, all four are niacin deficient and dehydrated from the diarrhea, and one of them, an older girl named Mai, turns out to be severely anemic as well – which, as Leonard discovers after a _very_ awkward and roundabout conversation, is probably due in no small part to the fact that she’s got unusually heavy and irregular menstrual bleeding. Her hemoglobin and ferritin levels are abysmal, so he adds an iron and Vitamin C combo in with her daily boosters and makes a note to emphasize the particular importance of meat consumption among girls and women when he talks to the nutrition committee.

Once he’s done with the kids, Leonard heads over to the purging house. The Mother and her daughters will all join him later for his nightly rounds, but at least to start, he deliberately makes that morning visit alone in order to have the privacy to use the tricorder, dermal, and hypo Aaronson smuggled down for him.

All his patients are coming along nicely under his care, well on their way to a full recovery, but Leonard’s a little worried about what will happen if the stain does ever come back after the Enterprise leaves. It’s awful to think of something like this happening again, the suffering that could so easily be avoided if there were even one person on Hearth who had the skills and equipment needed to provide the most basic medical care.

It’s partly a problem of Leonard’s own making. The Mother did agree to Jim’s demand that two people be assigned for Leonard to train, but they haven’t been selected yet. Leonard’s the one who’s been dragging his feet there, wary of getting saddled with a couple of overly pious goody-goodies who might kick up a fuss when they realize the esteemed Brother Leonard is relying on godless, science-based _medicine_ to treat the stained. Whoever he trains will have to be young and open-minded, not as entrenched in their beliefs around health and healing as an older person is likely to be. Leonard needs a dog that can still learn new tricks – and one that won’t rat him out to the Mother over his heretical methods before he has the chance to prove that they _work_.

The answer to his dilemma eventually reveals itself in the form of the Mother’s youngest daughter, Tala, who Leonard notices seems to be paying particularly close attention during their nightly rounds. She watches him like a hawk, studying his every move and copying exactly what he does with her own patients, often with an accompanying question about the how and why of it.

After talking it over with Jim, Leonard decides to take a chance on her. He tells the Mother he could really use another set of hands during his morning visit to the purging house and asks that Tala be assigned to help him, to which she readily agrees.

It may be the single best decision Leonard’s made on Hearth. Out from under the watchful eyes of her mother and sisters, Tala is an absolute gem, a refreshingly spirited young woman who proves to be a quick and eager student. Leonard entrusts her with his simplest, sturdiest tricorder and shows her how to run a few basic scans and how to act on the results. She’s fascinated by the idea that something you hold in your hand could illuminate the hidden secrets of a person’s body, and even more delighted by the healing powers of the dermal, which she’s soon wielding like a pro, tending to their patients’ rashes while Leonard is busy with more complicated assessments.

Between the dermal, the rehydration solution, the immune booster, and the nicotinamide supplementation, every one of their thirteen patients is showing marked improvement after just a few days. Those exhibiting signs of dementia have begun to mellow and come back to themselves, while the three comatose patients have grown increasingly responsive, first to supraorbital pressure, then to a firm shake and a loud voice. Leonard has hope that by the time he leaves, he’ll have seen them rouse of their own volition – maybe even eat for themselves, now that the glossitis is subsiding and he’s healed most of the ulcers in their mouths.

The kids have bounced back quickly, but the patients at the purging house were in more advanced stages of the disease. They’ll need consistent treatment for at least another couple weeks yet, long after Leonard and the rest of the Enterprise crew have gone.

Leonard floats the idea of leaving his equipment behind with Tala, who agrees so instantaneously that he’s afraid she doesn’t fully appreciate what he’s really asking of her.

“You’ll have to keep it a secret,” he says, treading carefully. “Even from your friends. Even from your family.” He doesn’t come right out and say _from the Mother_ – Tala’s _actual_ mother – but there’s no mistaking who they’re really talking about.

“I know, Uncle. I understand what this means. You can trust me.” Tala brushes Pru’s hair back from her face so she can hold the dermal to the healing mask of lesions across her nose and cheeks. She’s careful with all their patients, but she seems especially tender toward Pru, always taking an extra few moments to pet and comfort her, or even just sit quietly holding her slowly healing hand. “Nora and I were milk sisters, you know. Aunt Esther’s breasts ran dry when – what did you say it’s called, when the body is too hot?”

“A fever.”

“Fever,” Tala repeats, stowing the word more firmly in her memory. “After that, Mother fed us both. Nora and I were as good as raised together. I must have spent as much time at her family’s compound as I did at my own. She was my dearest friend.” Her lips tremble, and she pinches them together resolutely. “I was the first one she told about the stain. I wept like a child, but Nora wasn’t afraid. She told me the gods were testing her, and she had only to humble herself before them and have faith in their mercy.”

She busies herself with the dermal for a while, carefully tilting Pru’s face to expose the side of her nose to the regen beam. She handles the thing like she’s been doing it for years, but she’s not some trained and battle-tested nurse. She’s still just a kid, really. Too damn young to have had to face this kind of loss.

“Seeing her decline…I knew there had to be something else going on. Mother wouldn’t hear it, of course, but I knew there couldn’t possibly be any demon in Nora.” Tala smiles sadly down at Pru, who’s far more coherent than she was a few days ago, observing their conversation with mournful but lucid eyes. “Nor in you, either, Sister Prudence.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t come sooner,” Leonard says gently.

“Nora is with the gods now, Uncle. I will see her again when it is my time to go home.” Tala looks at him with her mother’s piercing black eyes, her jaw set in steely resolve. “Until then, I can think of no better way to honor her than to make sure no one else suffers like she did.”

It’s then that Leonard knows for sure that the people of Hearth are going to be just fine. He’s leaving them in real good hands.

+

By the time they’re finished up with all thirteen patients at the purging house, it’s usually about time for lunch, which Leonard looks forward to mainly for the opportunity to catch up with Jim, updating him on his patients and hearing how things are progressing with the Council. Jim’s still hard at work on his own official mission, hammering out an agreement on reaccession with the Council and laying out the terms for Hearth’s reintegration into the Federation. It’s by no means an easy task, and both sides are struggling to find an acceptable balance between respecting the Kindred’s sovereignty and ensuring that Federation-wide health and human rights standards are met.

Jim arrives nearly an hour late for lunch one day, trudging into the congregation hall looking absolutely bushed, for all that they’re barely halfway through the day. Leonard assumes he must have had another blow-up with the Council, a suspicion that’s only strengthened when Jim throws his arms around him as soon as he’s within reach, hauling him into a hug that feels just a touch too tight to be entirely for the sake of their audience.

“All right?” Leonard whispers, hugging back. If Jim’s upset, he’s not about to push him away, no matter how many prying eyes are fixed on the pair of them.

His fears are instantly laid to rest when Jim pulls back with a broad, triumphant smile. “They agreed. They’ll do it.”

“Do what?” Leonard guides Jim down to sit at the nearest table, shooting Sulu a dirty look as he does so. He _heard_ that catcall. “You forget sometimes that I’m not actually inside your brain, kid. Back up and give me some context.”

“I had Spock do some research. There’s this planet in the next system, Axtria – ”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of it,” Leonard says, handing Jim the serving bowl of corn and pork stew. “Big education hub, right? Lot of interesting research coming out of their medical center in the past few years.”

“Funny you should mention their medical center. Did you know they have a community health worker certification program? There’s a track specifically for rural communities, with modules on hygiene and sanitation, maternal health, nutrition, basic primary care for common childhood illnesses – even mental health.”

Leonard stares at him, disbelieving. “No way.”

“ _Yes_ way.” Jim’s grin could split his face in half. “I didn’t want to tell you until the Council okayed it. I’ve been working on them for days. We were going back and forth on it all morning, but they _agreed_ , Bones. They’re willing to send two people to start. Tala should go, obviously, and then probably a guy. I was thinking Petyr might be a good fit, but we could talk to Josephine to see – ”

“Jim,” Leonard interrupts.

“Yeah?” Jim is beaming, looking so damn pleased with himself. As he should be. What he’s managed to pull off – it’s more than Leonard dared to even hope for. If they weren’t right in the middle of the congregation hall, surrounded by hundreds of curious onlookers, Leonard’s not sure he could keep himself from kissing the living hell out of him.

He settles for grabbing him by the arm and yanking him into another hug, squeezing him tight as he can. “ _Thank you._ ”

“No need to thank me,” Jim says, sassy little bastard that he is, and then, more quietly: “You’re welcome. I just…I had to try.”

Leonard hears a wolf whistle coming from the next table, which he decides to let slide for the time being, though Sulu will definitely be paying for it later. Everyone in the hall must be gawking at them now, but Leonard doesn’t give a shit. He loves Jim, he _loves_ him, and in this moment, he doesn’t care if the whole damn universe can see that.

+

In the afternoons, Leonard meets with the crop diversification and nutrition committees, which are being helmed by Sulu and Aaronson, respectively.

To no one’s surprise, Sulu has been thrilled at the opportunity to quite literally get his hands dirty. Apart from when he’s with his family, Leonard’s not sure he’s ever seen the man happier than when he’s on his knees in one of the two new garden plots, sleeves pushed up past his elbows, face smeared with muddy streaks of soil and what he calls his “special sauce” fertilizer. (An awful fancy term for what Leonard’s pretty sure is mostly pig shit, but it’s not his place to judge.)

Aaronson seems equally pleased with her assignment to the nutrition committee, working with a team of cooks to devise recipes incorporating the new ingredients coming out of their fields and to plan out a meal schedule that will ensure a consistently nutritious diet. Leonard is impressed by how inventive Aaronson shows herself to be in the kitchen, though she waves it off in a very Kindredlike fashion as a natural consequence of raising eight children:

“Between them, I’ve got a stone fruit allergy, two different types of nut allergy, lactose intolerance, three vegetarians, and a kid who went through a two-year phase of not wanting to eat anything but canned sardines. Meanwhile, John would happily survive on nothing but buffalo wings if I let him, and on top of that I have to pretend we keep kosher every time my parents come to visit. So yeah, Doctor, you could say I’ve had to get creative at mealtime.”

The committees are thriving under their temporary leadership, and the members seem enthusiastic about pursuing these new projects. Leonard’s role is more advisory: plotting nutritionally balanced seasonal rotations for the gardens with Sulu, showing the nutrition committee how to soak their corn in lime water overnight to free the bound niacin, and making sure that both committees are on track to keep their clan healthy and well-fed in the months and years to come.

Like most meetings, Leonard’s sessions with the committees have a way of expanding to fill the available space. No matter how little Leonard thinks they have to discuss on a given day, somehow they always seem to stretch on until around dinnertime, at which point they all head to the congregation hall to try out whatever new dishes Aaronson and her cooks have come up with.

Dinner is a reliably loud, lively affair. Jim’s charming Brother James schtick has yet to wear thin with their hosts, and the evening meal is when the spotlight is most keenly focused on him – and, by association, on Leonard. Leonard can’t say he _likes_ it, but he’s grown used to Jim’s over-the-top performance, the gooey smiles and eyelash batting and pet names. It’s a little easier to tolerate now that he knows what to expect, at least, so he just plays along the best he can and tries not to agonize too much over identifying the exact boundary between truth and fiction.

After dinner it’s back to the purging house for nightly rounds, this time with the Mother and all seven daughters in tow. Jim typically tags along too, mostly just to observe and see how the patients are faring. Leonard doesn’t mind. Jim stays on his best behavior with the Mother there, letting Leonard work in relative peace and keeping out from underfoot, and, well, Leonard just plain likes having him around. He’s gotten kinda spoiled this mission, seeing so much of Jim throughout the day. On the ship, he considers it a good day if he _doesn't_ see Jim during his shift, since if he does it usually means Jim’s either sick, injured, or dropping by to drag him into some cockeyed scheme or another.

Even with so many helping hands – actually, maybe _especially_ with so many helping hands – their work at the purging house takes at least an hour or two. By that time, most of the Kindred have turned in for the night, so Leonard and Jim part ways with the Mother’s family and head back to their guest room, where they rarely have enough energy to do more than tug off their boots and collapse into bed. Leonard’s generally asleep by the time his head hits the spot where a pillow should be, and he sleeps like the dead every night, not rousing until there’s early morning light coming in through the window.

(If he’s lucky, he wakes up first, so he can steal a little time to lie there and enjoy the quiet pleasure of having Jim cuddled up against him, head heavy on his shoulder, arms and legs wound around him like Xemetian strangling vines.

Their lodgings still leave a hell of a lot to be desired, but all in all, there are worse ways to start a day.)

+

“You’re all clear,” Leonard tells Arjun one morning – his last morning on Hearth, assuming all goes well with the Council today. He watches as Arjun flexes his hands, staring down in amazement at the healthy dark skin stretching smoothly over his knuckles. “Good as new, right?”

“Oh, yes, Uncle,” Arjun says, still inspecting his hands. “Better, even.”

Leonard rests a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You know, there never was any demon in you, Arjun. I want to make sure you understand that. You didn’t do anything wrong. Bodies just do funny things sometimes.”

Arjun nods dutifully. “Yes, Uncle. I understand.” He looks sorta hesitant for a second, which Leonard doesn’t understand until he suddenly finds himself holding an armful of scrawny teenager, a pair of wiry arms squeezing him so tight he can hardly breathe.

“Thank you, Uncle,” Arjun says into Leonard’s chest. “I knew you would help me. Just like you helped the Wopytoans.”

Leonard pats his back. “Like I told you – that’s why we’re out here.”

Arjun releases him and shuffles back a couple steps. “Where will you go next?”

“Oh, who knows. Starfleet will give us new orders, probably, or Jim will get us into some crazy scrape or another. He’s real good at that, you know.” Arjun giggles. “In the meantime, I guess we’ll just get back to the usual – exploring, seeing what’s out there. Seeing if anyone needs our help.”

Arjun nods again. He doesn’t say anything, but there’s a funny little something in his expression that makes Leonard decide to spit out an idea that’s been growing on him the past few days. The kid’s sharp as a tack, and now that he’s back to full health, Leonard’s sure he’ll be Sister Josephine’s best student again in no time. And after she’s done with him…

“You know, if you ever get a mind to see some of those crazy-looking critters for yourself, you might consider joining up. Starfleet’s always looking for bright young folks, and I happen to know a couple senior officers who’d be more than happy to put in a good word with your application.”

“Oh, Uncle, I don’t know about that,” Arjun demurs, but his big cow eyes are gleaming, alight with possibility. He’s going to make it off this rock one way or another, Leonard’s sure of it. He’s got too much of that restless, inquisitive spirit in him to stay put.

“Well, you don’t have to decide now. You’re still young.”

“I’m nearly of age, Uncle,” Arjun says with a hint of what Leonard might take as attitude from a less well-mannered kid.

“That you are,” Leonard says gravely, electing to keep his thoughts on adolescent brain development to himself. “But you’re a young man, for all that. Now’s the time to be experimenting, figuring yourself out, deciding what you want for your life. Starfleet’s an option on the table – that’s all I’m saying. Up to you whether you choose to take it.”

Arjun considers this. “Did you know that you wanted to join Starfleet when you were my age?”

“Oh, lord, no. No, if you’d told me when I was fifteen that I’d end up spending years out in the void on some tin can of a starship, I’d’ve thought you were crazy. Or maybe that _I’d_ gone crazy. I never would’ve dreamed I could be happy living like this.”

“But you _are_ happy, aren’t you, Uncle?” Arjun asks, sounding slightly alarmed. “Even though it’s not what you thought you wanted?”

Leonard smiles. “Yeah, I’m happy. My life turned out just exactly the way it was supposed to, Arjun – just like yours will. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

+

Their last evening on Hearth is spent in celebration: not just of the successful negotiations and the curing of the stained, but of Petyr and Sofia’s wedding, which has been moved up a few days so the Enterprise crew can be in attendance.

It’s a remarkably festive occasion, though given how the Kindred feel about marriage, it’s no real surprise that they’d go all out for weddings. The ceremony is held by the big outdoor bonfire, presided over by the Mother. The bride is a vision of modest beauty, her dark hair braided into a crown around her head, her unadorned face flushed with joy. Petyr looks equally thrilled, though Leonard notices with deep amusement that he studiously avoids making eye contact with him or Jim, probably to keep his ears from giving him away.

Sofia’s students sing a few songs throughout the ceremony, accompanied by Sister Josephine on a small harp and a few other adults on a handful of stringed instruments with long, skinny necks – one played with a bow, like an erhu, and the others plucked at like stretched-out ukuleles. The music is surprisingly pleasing to the ear, especially considering it’s the first Leonard’s heard all week. The Kindred don’t even hum or whistle while they’re working, but apparently music is acceptable when it’s honoring the gods and the divine rite of marriage, the union of two souls and the start of a new family.

After the ceremony, they move into the congregation hall for dinner, which is a veritable feast by Kindred standards. Thanks to Sulu’s “special sauce,” some of the cuttings they planted earlier in the week are already producing, and Aaronson and her committee have put together a truly impressive spread: roasted squash, Andorian cabbage soup, sautéed Lemmese sprouts with bacon and garlic, arepas stuffed with pulled pork, polenta with roasted peppers and onions, and a mixed salad that’s a veritable rainbow in a bowl, bursting with peppery greens, orange and purple carrots, tomatoes, corn, and plenty of the Strititian blue cress that’s growing so well the gardeners can hardly keep up with it.

And of course there’s plenty of avati to drink, every household having shared a barrel of their finest for the occasion. Good old Brother Ernesto wanders over to Jim and Leonard’s table at one point and discreetly pours them a couple tankards of his special brew, which Jim manages to even more discreetly dump out in the fire the minute he’s gone.

“Sneaky,” Leonard whispers to him.

Jim smirks. “Let me guess – I’ll do?”

Leonard allows himself a second to just look at him: his pretty eyes, that lopsided smirk, the hair that’s been drooping lazily down over his forehead this whole week without any product to help keep it in place. “Yeah, kid, you’ll do,” he says, reaching up to flick a strand of hair out of Jim’s eye. “Guess I’ll have to keep you around.”

The biggest surprise of the evening comes after the meal is over, when they all head back outside to find that the benches have been moved back from their usual concentric rings, clearing a large open space around the fire pit. The Mother claps her hands to get everyone’s attention and announces with a smile that the newlyweds and other married couples are now invited to dance with their partners in celebration of the newest pair to join the ranks of holy matrimony.

Before she’s even finished talking, half the celebrants have craned their heads around to look expectantly at Jim and Leonard, eager for their favorite sideshow act to perform one last trick before the circus pulls out of town.

_Of course._

The laser-focused attention of so many eyes still makes Leonard’s skin crawl, but he’s developed something of a tolerance for it over the past week. He squashes down his discomfort and turns to Jim, resigned to his fate. There’s no way in hell Jim or the Kindred are going to let him sit this out; he may as well face it head-on.

“I’m leading,” he says firmly, raising their clasped hands and placing his right one on Jim’s hip.

“Sure you are,” Jim says, but he obediently lays his hand on Leonard’s shoulder as the music starts, yielding without any further fuss.

Jim is a pretty decent dancer, though he’s clearly not accustomed to following. He’s naturally light on his feet, and he’s certainly had plenty of practice with formal dancing at state receptions and all the other hoity-toity functions they’ve attended over the years. Leonard usually spends most of those affairs hiding out by the bar, thanking his lucky stars that his grudging presence is pretty much all that’s required of him, but the same can’t be said for Jim, who’s expected to spend the whole night spinning an unending succession of statesmen’s wives and royal consorts around the dance floor, charming them with his inoffensive wit and flattery.

It’s just another role he has to play – that of Captain James T. Kirk, Starfleet’s golden poster boy. In the end, so much of his job boils down to appearances: shaping other people’s perceptions, meeting expectations, presenting just the right image. Some days he has to be the irreproachably impartial diplomat, other days the hardened military commander of unwavering confidence and resolve, and still others apparently call for the chatty, good-natured married man.

Then of course there’s the fine line he has to walk on the Enterprise. Jim’s crew adore him, practically _worship_ him, but the vast majority of them only know him as Captain Kirk, the fearless leader who can face down a powered-up Klingon destroyer without flinching, the firm but approachable boss who remembers all their names and can always be counted on to greet them with a smile, a nod, maybe a clap on the shoulder and an inquiry about some trivial personal matter they mentioned in passing months before.

That’s closer to the truth, at least, but it’s still a role. The crew don’t see who their captain is off-duty – the man who drools in his sleep and wakes up every morning with a noise like a stepped-on Tribble, who has to be tricked and browbeaten into eating his vegetables like a damn five-year-old, who gets weepy over the sad parts of books he’s read a million times before, who’ll happily stick his whole arm into the filth of a backed-up ventilation pipe but gags at the thought of used bubblegum. The man who really did destroy the kitchen in his apartment the first time he tried to make pot roast for a senior crew dinner, and who once, two days into a truly ungodly Kropturian stomach bug even Leonard’s strongest antiemetic couldn’t completely quell, violently puked up the couple little sips of ginger ale he’d managed to keep down for seven whole minutes right through his nose and promptly burst into noisy, inconsolable tears.

_That’s_ the man Leonard loves, God help him. Those diplomats and queens’ consorts and starry-eyed ensigns can have the great Captain Kirk all to themselves. Leonard’s plenty happy just having Jim.

“I think you’ve been keeping secrets from me again, Bones,” Jim says with mock severity, eyeing Leonard suspiciously. “Where’d you learn to dance?”

Leonard cringes in anticipation. Jim’s gonna have a field day with this. “Cotillion lessons.”

Jim’s whole face lights up with undisguised glee. “Are you _serious_?”

“As a heart attack.” The musicians shift into a new song, a bit faster, and Leonard switches up the rhythm of their dancing, adjusting their steps to the beat. “It was the done thing in my family. My folks signed me up when I was thirteen. You know, just when most boys are feeling real confident and comfortable in their own skin. Perfect time to be forced into doing the foxtrot with a bunch of girls a head taller than you.”

Jim grins. “You totally got some surprise boners in class, didn’t you?”

“I was _thirteen_. Goddamn thing had a mind of its own.” Leonard spins Jim out and then reels him back in, much to his obvious delight (to say nothing of their audience). “I did the classes a couple years, and then I had the great honor to be partnered with Miss Graciela Castillo at her debut.”

“You went to an actual ball? Oh my God. This may be the best day of my life.” Leonard arches an eyebrow, and Jim concedes, “Okay, fine, it has some competition, but this is definitely top five material. You went to a _debutante ball_ , Bones. That is just…perfect.”

Jim looks fit to bust, he’s so excited. Leonard will unquestionably be taking shit about this for the rest of his natural life, but it almost feels worth it for how much of a kick Jim’s getting out of it.

“So, Mr. Fancypants Southern Gentleman,” Jim says – and oh, yeah, this is gonna get old quick – “how does this party measure up?”

Leonard has to laugh at the thought of comparing this humble shindig to the grandeur of a Georgian debutante ball. “The dance floor’s a good bit more rustic. Those girls would’ve cut off an arm before they’d go clomping around in the dirt like this in their pretty white dresses.” He gives Jim another spin, liking the giddy smile it gets him. “The food tonight was better, actually. And the clothes are more comfortable, that’s for sure. Lord, I was sweating bullets in that monkey suit. Didn’t help that Mama tied my tie so tight she just about popped my head off. Felt like I had a damn noose around my neck.”

“Worse than your dress uniform?” Jim ribs him.

Leonard pulls a face. “That’s like asking whether I’d rather be hanged or garroted.”

“Hanged if it’s done right,” Jim says immediately, with the absolute confidence of a man who’s been strangled more times than he has fingers and toes. “How is that even a question?”

“Not all of us have had quite as much hands-on experience as you have, kid. But I suppose I’ll defer to your expert opinion.” He urges Jim slightly to the left, steering him clear of Ernesto and his wife, who are waltzing around with the kind of clumsy exuberance that suggests they may have both indulged in Ernesto’s secret recipe. “Oh, and of course we weren’t dancing nearly this close. Had to leave room for the Holy Spirit, you know.”

“Well, of course.” Jim drums his fingers lightly against Leonard’s shoulder. “And your dance partner?”

He couldn’t be more blatantly fishing if he pulled out a rod and cast a line, but Leonard decides to humor him anyway. He really is getting soft in his old age.

“Hmm, let’s see, now.” He gives Jim as much of a once-over as he can, pretending to size him up. “Taller. Chattier. Not nearly as ladylike. _Terrible_ table manners.” He squints theatrically at Jim’s face, screwing one eye shut and tilting his head to the side. “Hard to say for sure, in this light, but I suppose you might be just the tiniest bit nicer-looking than Graciela.”

Jim quirks a brow – surprised, pleased, a little coy. “Is that so?”

“Oh, yeah,” Leonard says easily. “She was a real dog. Ears like a couple of saucer modules, buck teeth out to here…”

Jim throws his head back and laughs, delighted. Leonard’s just pulling his leg about Graciela – she was gorgeous, a real stunner, the prettiest girl in class and a sweetheart to boot – but in this moment, relaxed and joyful, Jim’s got her beat by a mile. 

“You old romantic, you,” he says, echoing his tease from their first night here. “Boy, you southern gentlemen sure know how to make a man feel special.”

“A man has a big enough head as it is,” Leonard says. “You don’t need any more ego stroking.”

“Of course I do. Have you _met_ me? I live on ego stroking. I’ll wither away without it. You don’t want that on your conscience.” Leonard remains unmoved, and Jim pouts for just a couple seconds before breaking, too cheerful to pretend otherwise for long. “Fine, whatever. I know you’re thinking all the nice stuff. You don’t have to say it.”

_I just want you to say it._

Leonard falters mid-step, earning himself a questioning look from Jim. “Stepped on a rock,” he lies – unconvincingly, judging by Jim’s expression.

He’s been so preoccupied with his work the past few days that he hasn’t given a single thought to that strange dream he had the other night: him and Jim together in the Jacksons’ pecan orchard, alone in the dark. Even on waking from it, he was only concerned with how it ended, the collar around Jim’s throat that gave him the kick in the ass he needed to make the diagnosis that’d been right under his nose the whole time.

But there was more to it, wasn’t there? The details are starting to drift back to him now, wispy and disjointed:

Jim’s arms around his neck.  
The summery vanilla sweetness of Jim’s mouth.  
The curves of Jim’s iliac crests under his fingers, comforting in their solidity.  
_I think you’re scared._

That wasn’t really Jim, of course – only the idea of him, jumbled in with the usual nonsensical hodgepodge of memories and subconscious associations. The real Jim has no idea that his imagined self even put in an appearance in Leonard’s dream, much less what he said or did.

It was just a dream. But as Leonard’s recently been reminded, sometimes it takes a dream to help you put your finger on something you already ought to know.

_Do you love me, Bones?_

He does. He loves Jim more than anyone, more than he can possibly put into words. Of course he loves him - his troublesome stray, the best thing that could’ve ever happened to him, the one person in the universe who doesn’t feel like work to be around. A man anyone would be proud to call their husband.

“You’re getting spacey on me,” Jim says lightly, tapping his index finger against Leonard’s shoulder. “What’s up? You didn’t sneak some of Brother Ernesto’s home brew while I wasn’t looking, did you?”

Leonard shakes his head. His chest hurts, too full of everything he’s not saying, can’t say, will never be able to find the right words for. He can only think of one way to let Jim know, and it’s – well, it’s terrifying, for all that Jim seems to find it so easy.

_Just follow my lead. Same as always._

The humor fades from Jim’s expression. “All right?” he prompts, beginning to look honestly concerned.

Leonard tightens his grip on Jim’s hip. It’s the left one, the one that nearly cost Jim his life not so long ago, but it’s all healed up now, stronger than ever. He can hold on as hard as he wants; Jim can take it. He won’t break. _They_ won’t break.

“All right,” he says, and leans in to press his mouth to Jim’s.

It’s not like how Jim kissed him in the audience hall that first day, and even less like the frantic, heated way they tore into each other up against the barn wall the next night. There’s no teasing in this kiss, and no demanding either. It’s a gentle, unshowy little thing, comfortable and easy and true.

Jim exhales into it, the faint warmth of his breath achingly sweet against Leonard’s lips. His fingers tighten ever so slightly on Leonard’s shoulder, but he doesn’t pull him closer, doesn’t try to make this more than it is. He just lets himself be kissed, accepting the way Leonard’s chosen to do so. Following Leonard’s lead.

When it’s over, Leonard draws back enough to watch Jim’s eyes blink open, drinking in the sight of him: the soft set of his mouth, the play of firelight and shadow over the planes of his face, the opalescent shimmer of those eyes. He’s not smiling, exactly, but there’s something _luminous_ in the way he’s looking at Leonard now, something raw and unguarded that transforms his whole face, makes him impossibly more beautiful.

That’s not for show. That’s _real_. Leonard feels it in…well, in his bones.

Jim glances down at Leonard’s lips, then back up to his eyes, studying him with that curious, breathtaking intensity he gets sometimes when he’s trying to puzzle something out. His thumb moves slowly back and forth along Leonard’s shoulder, tracing the seam of his shirt. “Sulu’s filming this,” he says in a low voice. “On your six.”

Leonard shrugs, not bothering to look. “I don’t care.”

Jim does smile then, lines sketching out from his fire-bright eyes. His gaze drops to Leonard’s mouth again, but instead of kissing him like Leonard half expects, he sways his entire body closer, his hand slipping down from Leonard’s shoulder to slide around his back. Leonard meets him halfway, curls his arm around Jim’s waist and pulls him in until Jim’s chest is up against his and their cheeks are flush and there’s no room for the Holy Spirit or daylight or anything else between them.

Leonard spots Aaronson over Jim’s shoulder, making googly eyes at him from a nearby bench. He pointedly ignores her, chooses instead to coax Jim into a turn and close his eyes, relaxing into the sweetness of Jim’s body against his. Aaronson can think whatever she wants; Sulu and the Kindred too. The only person whose opinion is worth a tinker’s damn to him is right here in his arms, cheek flexing against his as they spin in a lazy, drunken circle around their own axis, off-rhythm now, adrift in the crowd.

“You _are_ an old romantic,” Jim says in his ear, real quiet, just for the two of them. “You do realize that, right?”

Leonard presses his cheek more firmly against Jim’s, savoring the feel of that smile. “Who, me? Never.”

“You don’t get my accent right either, you know,” Jim says, but he’s still smiling, still dancing close as can be with his hand folded up in Leonard’s, warm and strong. His other hand rests comfortably between Leonard’s shoulder blades – a sure touch, but a light one. He knows Leonard’s not going anywhere.

Tomorrow, things will go back to normal. For tonight, though, for these last couple hours in the flickering spotlight of the Kindred’s bonfire, Leonard can hold onto the fairytale a little while longer. He can pretend that this – dancing with Jim out here in front of God and everyone, kissing him whenever he likes, loving him out loud as fiercely as he’s loved him in secret for so very long – that it’s something he can have forever, that it won’t slip out of his grasp like the hazy plumes of smoke unfurling from the Kindred’s bonfire to vanish into the glittering night sky.

But it’s all right. He’ll still have Jim, and that’s the only thing that really matters. So what if he can’t have him exactly like this? Tonight and tomorrow and for all the days still to come, he’ll take as much of Jim as he can get, and he’ll be damned thankful for it, too.

+

“Welcome back, Captain,” Scotty says cheerfully, spinning in his seat at the transport console as the away team steps down from the pad. He nods solemnly at Leonard. “Mr. Captain.”

“How was the honeymoon?” Karimova asks, sticking her tongue between her teeth in an obnoxious grin.

“It was _magnificent_ ,” Sulu says. “I have holos, people. So many holos.”

Leonard seriously considers crossing the first few names off his revenge list right here and now, but Jim intervenes, gets himself between Leonard and the rest like a human shield and puts a firm hand on Leonard’s elbow to steer him forward. “Don’t give them the satisfaction,” he says quietly. “You know they’re just trying to get a rise out of you.”

He’s one to talk. Shit, he’s usually first in line to egg on Leonard’s temper. The fact that he’s trying to pacify him now is what ends up keeping Leonard in check, more so than his words.

“Come on, let’s leave the children to their fun.” This last part Jim says more loudly, over his shoulder, and the answering chorus of hoots and cackles follows them as they stride out into the hall, leaving Sulu and Aaronson behind to gossip with the transport crew.

As soon as they’re out of earshot, Leonard tugs off his fake wedding band and tosses it at Jim, who catches it without breaking his stride. Damn show-off. “You can go ahead and stick that back in whichever grave you robbed now. Won’t be needing it again.”

“I didn’t rob a _grave_ ,” Jim says, sounding insulted. “Jesus, Bones, give me a little credit. You don’t think I learned my lesson after Fyormi? I just – ”

His explanation is interrupted by the arrival of Spock, who manifests out of thin air to appear at Jim’s other elbow, as is his way. “Congratulations on your successful mission, Captain. Did you accomplish everything you intended?”

“Thank you, Spock. And…yeah. Yeah, I think we did. Hope so, anyway.”

Spock produces the PADD he’s been holding behind his back. “In that case, there are several items I must ask you to attend to before you retire.”

“Right,” Jim says on a sigh. “Back to the grind.” He takes the PADD from Spock’s hand and starts swiping at it, looking ten years older as the unglamorous mantle of captaincy falls back over his shoulders.

“You should be glad to know that your workload is relatively light,” Spock says. “You have violated only two and a half Starfleet regulations during this mission, well below the threshold that has historically drawn the Admiralty’s attention.”

“Well, that _is_ a pleasant surprise.” Jim slants Spock a weary, amused look. “Two and a half?”

“The phrasing of the third is ambiguous,” Spock says with a glint of humor. “In light of your successful negotiations and the reintegration of Hearth into the Federation, I believe a more lenient interpretation is merited.”

“You’re going soft on me, Spock,” Jim says fondly. He furrows his brow at something he sees on the screen, scrolls back to scrutinize a chart Leonard can’t make sense of from here. “Any bets on how many of these I’ll have by the time I make it to my office?”

Leonard snorts, busy getting his granddaddy’s ring settled back in its rightful place on his little finger. “How many have we got on the ship?”

“I cannot participate in this exercise in the spirit I believe you intend, as I am aware of the precise number of matters requiring your attention at present,” Spock says.

Jim groans. “Great. I’m gonna end up walled in like Fortunato, aren’t I?” He claps Spock on the back. “Don’t answer that. But listen, if I don’t turn up for my shift tomorrow, send an extraction team, would you?”

“As you wish, Captain.”

“Good man.” Jim spins around to salute them both with the PADD before veering left at the next crossing, heading toward the bridge. In the few seconds before Leonard loses sight of him, some junior lieutenant from operations has already scurried up to him with a screen in each tentacle.

Leonard expects Spock to make his exit then too, but instead of following Jim or peeling off to go attend to his own affairs, he keeps walking at Leonard’s side, even shifting over a step to close the gap Jim previously occupied.

Well, that’s new. And unwelcome.

“Something I can do for you, Spock?”

“The captain appears to be in exceptionally high spirits,” Spock says mysteriously.

Leonard eyeballs him, curiosity sharpening into suspicion. “Yeah, well, mission was successful. Of course he’s happy.”

“I have no doubt that he is gratified by the success of his negotiations with the Kindred. Perhaps nearly as gratified as he was to have the opportunity to openly demonstrate his romantic sentiments toward you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Leonard says brusquely. “It was a _mission_. Jim was just doing what it took to get the job done.”

“As usual, Doctor, there are several significant flaws in your argument, the most salient of which is the implication that the captain’s conduct was both culturally appropriate and necessary to ensure the success of either of your missions. While it is true that the Kindred highly value faithfulness and committed partnership within the context of marriage, this does not typically manifest in overt public displays of affection. The captain’s behavior toward you while on Hearth went far beyond what was required to convince the Kindred of the legitimacy of your union.”

Leonard shrugs, increasingly uncomfortable with this line of discussion. “So he played it up a little – put on a show for some bored yokels. You know he’s got a flair for the dramatic.”

“I am familiar with Jim’s many illogical tendencies, including his proclivity for comedic exaggeration and melodrama,” Spock says. “However, I disagree that the primary motive of his actions on Hearth was to, as you say, ‘put on a show.’ Furthermore, I do not believe that even you are persuaded by your own rationalization.”

Leonard glares at him. “Between the two of us, I think I’d know better.”

Spock tilts a deeply skeptical eyebrow. “Indeed.” Leonard bristles, but before he can demand to know just what _that’s_ implying, Spock is continuing: “I assume you are aware, Doctor, that emotional fulfillment tracks closely with productivity in humans. Individuals who rate highly on measures of perceived wellbeing and satisfaction with intimate interpersonal relationships are more self-motivated and engaged in their work by some orders of magnitude. Furthermore, research has shown that there is a distinct ‘trickle-down’ effect from those in leadership positions, particularly in environments with strict and formalized hierarchies. These findings are supported by extensive anecdotal evidence across many otherwise disparate societies. Given your penchant for idiomatic parlance, it will perhaps strengthen my argument to remind you of the K’wustian proverb: ‘A happy chief makes for a happy _k’wulii_.’”

“What exactly are you getting at, Spock?” Leonard snaps.

“There is no need to take offense, Doctor,” Spock says, maddeningly unruffled. “As first officer of this vessel, I am merely noting the potential benefits that could accrue to the crew at large as a result of a slight adjustment to your relationship dynamic with the captain.”

Leonard scoffs. “ _Slight_. Sure.”

Spock meets his gaze. “Slight,” he repeats evenly, with a strange gleam in his eyes that’s entirely too knowing for Leonard’s comfort. “However, as you appear typically resistant to the logic of my argument, and as you are no doubt in need of rest after your long stay on Hearth, I will not waste further time in attempting to convince you. Good night, Leonard. I hope you have a most _productive_ evening.”

And with that, he turns on his heel and swans off down the corridor, leaving Leonard to stew in silent outrage the rest of the way to his quarters.

Spock has some nerve sticking his green-blooded nose in where it doesn’t belong. If and when Leonard decides he wants romantic advice from a man who gave his girlfriend a goddamn tracking device as a symbol of his affection, he’ll damn well ask for it.

Where the hell does Spock get off acting like he’s got some kind of insider knowledge, anyway? Leonard knows Jim better than anyone, freaky Vulcan mind voodoo be damned. Jim’s not looking for anything to change between them, and if he were, he’d tell Leonard as much. Lord knows he rattles off every other thought that crosses his mind. If he really wanted a quote-unquote “adjustment” to their quote-unquote “relationship dynamic” – and, God, would it kill Spock to talk like a normal person instead of a goddamn computer for once in his life? Poor Uhura. Their pillow talk must be like running maintenance on a damn AI system.

Jesus, now he’s thinking about Spock and Uhura in bed together. _Shudder._

Anyway, the point is, if that were really something Jim wanted, he’d come right out and _say_ so. He ain’t exactly the bashful self-denying type when it comes to stuff like this.

Spock always thinks his dispassionate logical perspective gives him some kind of godlike insight into other people’s affairs, but the fact is he’s just a meddling busybody like the rest of them. Leonard and Jim’s relationship is nobody’s business but theirs, and they’re both perfectly happy with how things stand, thank you.

Leonard scans himself into his quarters and goes straight to the head, where he strips out of his uniform and proceeds to use up two weeks’ worth of hot water credits steaming the grime and pig shit out of his skin. The shower leaves him sluggish and groggy, dead on his feet. He has just enough energy afterward to brush his teeth and throw on some sleep pants before falling gratefully into bed with a gruff order to turn down the lights.

After a week of ruining his back on that lumpy pallet the Kindred put them up on, his own standard-issue Starfleet mattress is almost _too_ comfortable. He sprawls out on his back and lets out a long, satisfied sigh, relieved to be – well, not home exactly, but close enough.

Tired as he is, he’s still too keyed-up from the day’s events to fall asleep right away. He drifts for a while, letting his mind wander. His thoughts stray naturally back to Hearth, to their barren little guest room and that godawful bed, and, then, inevitably, to Jim:

Jim’s heavy head on his shoulder. The welcome heat of him cuddled close under the scratchy blanket. That dumb noise he makes when he wakes up.

Jim’s eyes glittering in the firelight, bright as opals. His enigmatic little almost-smile. _What is a lie but the truth in masquerade?_

The kiss in the audience hall, Jim’s mouth against his in front of all those people, and the fearless deep blue of his eyes afterward.

The way Jim smiled holding his hand in the transporter room before they beamed down, and the way he looked at him just a few hours ago, after Leonard kissed him – that quiet, wonderstruck happiness that lit him up from the inside, made him positively _glow_.

Leonard opens his eyes and stares up toward the pitch black darkness of the ceiling. “Son of a bitch,” he breathes.

Spock is right. He _hates_ when Spock is right.

He could kick himself. Here he’s been tying himself in knots fretting about what it all means, wringing his hands over what’s real and what’s just for show, and the answer’s been staring him in the face this whole time. How blind could he be?

Sure, Jim hasn’t _said_ it, not in as many words. Instead, he’s reverted to old habits: hiding the truth in plain sight.

“Un-fucking-believable,” Leonard mutters to himself. All these theatrics when Jim could have saved them both a lot of time and fuss by just _using his words_ like a goddamn adult. Leonard’s gonna wring his neck, he really is.

Well. He’s probably gonna do a few other things to him first. But eventually, when he’s good and ready, he’s gonna wring his neck. Maybe feed him some beets and Plufeen pudding, while he’s at it.

He’s tempted to charge off to Jim’s office right this minute to give him an earful, but it’s late, he’s coming off the end of a few very long days, and Jim has work that needs doing. It’ll keep until tomorrow.

Besides, if he goes storming through the bridge and into Jim’s ready room at this hour, the whole ship will hear about it by the start of alpha shift. This is definitely not a conversation he wants to have while worrying about a crowd of nosy Nellies just outside, straining to hear, a couple of the more brazen ones probably with their ears to the damn door.

They _will_ talk about this, though. Leonard will make Jim talk, whether he likes it or not. And if this is really what Jim wants…

He thinks again of the look on Jim’s face when he kissed him earlier, the light in his eyes, the way he tucked himself into Leonard’s arms and smiled and smiled. 

He thinks of how it felt to dance with him like that, close and sweet, the quiet secret thing between them right on the brink of finally spilling out into the light.

_Sometimes change is good._

Maybe, just maybe, this could be worth the risk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, it’s cruel to leave it there. One of the reasons this update was so late was that I just could not make up my mind about whether to include this scene or move it to the next chapter. I obviously ended up deciding to heartlessly leave you with the cliffhanger, but trust me, you’ll understand next week (next week!!!!!!) why the final chapter needed to stand on its own. It is a _doozy_ , my dudes.
> 
> More than ever, I am so grateful for all of you. It is such a joy to have you along for the ride, and you've been especially wonderful this past week, which really helped boost me along as I struggled to wrap up these two final chapters to give you guys the ending you deserve. Thank you, thank you, thank you. ♥


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the masquerade is finally over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Readers, I love you. I really do. I know I say this every week, but as we draw to a close, I just want to make sure you understand how much your support has meant to me. I have put so much time into this story, have literally spent entire days recently hunched over my laptop like some kind of creepy fic goblin as I pull the final pieces together, and it has been incredibly energizing to hear that even one person cares half as much about what happens to these two knuckleheads as I do. Every comment, every message, every reblog and tag – each and every one of them have helped make this story what it is. Thank you, thank you, thank you. ♥♥♥

“Computer, window transparency at fifty percent.”

Leonard frowns as the wall shimmers, the floor-to-ceiling panels fading to a foggy translucence. “What’re you doin’, kid?” He’s comfortable like this, slumped on the couch with Jim curled against him, the heat from the fire warming his feet where they’re propped on the coffee table. He doesn’t want Jim getting any ideas about moving.

“I want to look outside,” Jim says, kissing Leonard’s neck. “Little known fact – that’s actually what _most_ people use windows for.”

Leonard pinches him. “Smartass.” He runs his hand up Jim’s thigh, absently admiring the way the sparse hair glints gold in the firelight. “Problem with that is, if you can see out, out can see in. And you ain’t exactly in your Sunday best.”

“So? Let ’em look.” Jim swings his legs off Leonard’s lap and springs to his feet, easily extracting himself from Leonard’s halfhearted attempts to keep him down. Leonard was _comfortable_ , dammit. “What, you think I have something to be embarrassed about?” He shoots Leonard a wink before turning and heading toward the external wall, switching his hips a mite more energetically than his stride really calls for. Not that Leonard’s complaining. He’d rather have kept Jim on the couch, but the back view of him’s not a bad consolation prize. He does make a pretty sight in his little black shorts, his pale legs looking a mile long, muscles flexing in his calves and thighs, arms swinging at his sides. Art in motion.

Jim's bare feet squeak on the faux hardwood floor as he crosses the room. They’ve updated the officers’ quarters since their last stopover here, made them feel a bit homier, which Leonard appreciates. The fireplace is a nice touch, though pretty incongruous with the rest of the suite’s streamlined, minimalist décor.

Jim walks right up to the wall and stands there looking out, a hand pressed to the blurry glass. No, not glass, and not transparent aluminum either, but some kind of new compound they engineered specifically for this station. Leonard doesn’t remember the details; he generally stops listening about three words in whenever Jim and Scotty start jabbering on about the structural marvels of this damned place. Whatever it is, Leonard’s just glad it’s so impressively smudge-resistant. It’d be a real pain in the ass if they had to squeegee the wall every time Jim got the itch to look out at the snow globe.

“Bones,” Jim says in a wheedling tone, which Leonard saw coming a light-year away. Jim’s never satisfied with getting his own fool self into trouble; he always has to drag Leonard along for the ride. “Come here – you have to see this.”

“I’ve seen it plenty,” Leonard says, obstinately nestling down into the couch cushions, which don’t feel half as comfy with Jim gone. _Dammit._ “You know that shit makes me nauseous. Roads aren’t supposed to _do_ that.”

Jim tosses him a sly smile over his shoulder. “You don’t like having your world turned upside down?”

Leonard arches an eyebrow at him. “Not your best line, kid.”

“I don’t need lines with you. You’re stuck with me just the way I am. You _love_ me.” Jim turns more fully toward him, his whole body sheened a faint coppery gold in the firelight. “Don’t you?”

“I do.” And then, because that doesn’t feel like enough somehow: “I love you.”

Jim offers him one of his little triumphant grins. “Good. Then come here.” He stretches his hand out in Leonard’s direction, wriggling his fingers in childish invitation.

Leonard heaves himself up from the couch and goes over to join Jim by the wall. He takes Jim’s hand, lacing their fingers together, and Jim grins even bigger and unexpectedly pulls him into closed position, launching them into the spinning steps of a slow, clumsy waltz.

“There’s no music,” Leonard says, trying to get his feet under him. It’s not a protest, just an observation. If Jim wants to dance, they’ll dance. That’s how this goes.

“Don’t need it.” Jim sways in closer, tucking his cheek against Leonard’s. “You love me.”

Leonard strokes his hip. “I do,” he says, though it wasn’t a question this time.

“You said that already,” Jim says, but he’s smiling, warm and loose-limbed in Leonard’s arms. Happy. That’s all Leonard cares about. “Computer, window transparency at – ”

+

He’s startled awake by the dip of the mattress, the muffled shockwave of a body dropping down beside him like a ton of bricks. No sooner has he processed that sensation than the body in question is squirming up against him, a warm hand alighting on his chest to fondle his collarbones, while farther down there’s a leg insinuating itself between his, hooking possessively over his thigh. Winding around him like Xemetian strangling vines.

Leonard rolls his eyes in the dark. Jackass can never just get into bed quietly – always has to make a big production of it and drag him out of a sound sleep.

“Quit your wigglin’,” he grumbles, wrapping his arm around Jim’s shoulders in the hope of getting him to settle. “Some of us are tryin’ to sleep.”

Jim hums against Leonard’s throat, mouthing wetly under his jaw. “Some of us are trying to fuck you.”

Leonard snorts. “Left all your pretty rhetoric back on Hearth, I see.” He slides his hand down the long, smooth planes of Jim’s back, only to discover that he’s apparently already stripped down to bare-assed nothing. “Feelin’ mighty optimistic about our chances, were we?”

“You could say that.” Jim scrapes a blunt nail across his nipple, smirks into his throat when he jerks and curses. “Something tells me you’re not gonna need a lot of convincing.”

Probably not, though Leonard’s not admitting that to Jim quite yet. They’re so close to the end – how much harm could there be in bending the rules just a little?

Seeing as how it’s been put so obligingly on offer, Leonard helps himself to a good handful of Jim’s ass, kneading at the round, firm curve, and – oh, hold on, now.

“ _Mighty_ optimistic.” He teases his fingertips up the trail of slick to its source. “All that admin work really turns your crank, huh?”

Jim seals his hot mouth over Leonard’s pulse point and _sucks_ , hard enough that he’s probably going to have to pull out the dermal in the morning. “My mind wandered.”

Leonard traces over his wet, quivery hole with a fair amount of regret. “Much as I admire your initiative, darlin’, you know I’m not gonna – ”

The sudden tension in Jim’s muscles is the only warning he gets before he abruptly finds himself pinned, Jim’s weight straddling his hips, Jim’s hands holding his wrists to the pillow on either side of his head. Jim’s thighs flex against Leonard’s flanks as he folds himself down so they’re chest to chest, breathing out over Leonard’s lips, taunting him with the very faintest suggestion of a kiss – and then, bizarrely, he turns his head and asks in a loud, clear voice: “Computer, date and time?”

_“Stardate is 2266.350. Current ship time is 0028 hours.”_

“You got another appointment or somethin’?” Leonard asks, as deadpan as he can manage with Jim’s hard cock digging into his belly.

“2266. _350_ ,” Jim says, like Leonard’s missing something stupidly obvious. He nips at Leonard’s jaw. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t that be just about forty-three days after 2266.307 – you know, the day you discharged me from medbay?”

Oh, _fuck_.

“I can confirm your calculations,” Leonard says hoarsely, and Jim huffs a laugh against his cheek and kisses him for real this time, hot and lush and insistent.

He releases Leonard’s wrists so he can get his clothes off, stripping him out of his pants and underwear so quick he practically leaves friction burns, and then immediately reclaims his mouth, both hands cupping his face, kissing and kissing him until Leonard is dizzy, breathless, lost to him.

“Awful convenient timin’,” he observes when Jim finally backs off long enough to let him string a thought together. His own hands have migrated south, reacquainting themselves with the bunched-up muscles of Jim’s hips and thighs. “You actually get any work done, or were you just watchin’ the clock?”

“Like you care.” Jim shifts back a bit to better align their hips, rocks down against Leonard’s hardening cock so perfectly that Leonard sees stars. “ _Six weeks_ , Bones. More like nine if you count the time I was in medbay. You’re telling me you really want to wait longer?” He urges Leonard’s head back to suck at his throat some more, marking him up with that greedy, sinful mouth. “I followed…mmm…all your rules. I didn’t…do anything…stupid. I didn’t even…complain…much. I’d say…I have been…a _very_ good boy.”

That little bit of truth-stretching earns him a good firm tap on the ass, to which he predictably jolts and whimpers, swaying his hips back for more. “You’re a goddamn menace is what you are,” Leonard growls, bringing his hand down again on the deliciously taut curve of Jim’s ass. It’s just so tempting, all round and perfectly positioned for him; he can’t resist. “Listen to you, actin’ like you ain’t spent the last week rubbin’ up against me every chance you got. You’re damn lucky I decided to be nice and not add more time onto your sentence.”

“Hey, you’re the one who wouldn’t let me get you off. I _tried_ to make you see reason. Repeatedly.” Jim purses his lips around the corner of Leonard’s jaw, loose and wet, filthily suggestive. “But no, you had to be a martyr and make the both of us suffer.”

It isn’t a question of martyrdom, or even fairness. The truth is Leonard doesn’t _like_ getting off alone. It’s the same reason he hasn’t jerked off this whole time, no matter how crazy Jim’s been driving him. It just doesn’t do it for him anymore, not when he knows how much better it can be. Sex without Jim’s pleasure feels incomplete, frustratingly unsatisfying, like eating food you can’t taste. Sure, the basic concept’s there, but it’s a damned poor imitation of the real thing. Why even bother?

More pragmatically, they both know damn well Jim can’t be counted on not to get hard while blowing him, and Leonard has no faith in his own willpower when it comes to resisting the lure of those dark, hazy eyes and swollen lips.

So strict celibacy it was for the both of them – though Jim certainly toed _that_ line a time or two. Leonard will just have to see that he pays the price for it.

He smooths both hands up Jim’s back, relishing the way he arches into it, and then strokes back down to where Jim’s splayed open over top of him. “Where’s the – ”

One of Jim’s hands leaves his neck and reaches off to the side, pawing at the sheets. He scrabbles around for several seconds before cursing under his breath. “Fuck. Hang on.” His other hand slides up from Leonard’s cheek to cover his eyes. “Computer, lights at fifteen percent.”

The scrabbling resumes, and this time it’s not long before Jim lets out a crow of triumph and a familiar object plunks onto Leonard’s chest.

“Computer – ”

Leonard peels the hand away from his eyes, blinking up at Jim’s backlit silhouette. “Leave ’em on.”

There’s not much light, but it’s enough to make out the Cheshire Cat gleam of Jim’s smile before he descends for another heated kiss.

Leonard fumbles his way through opening the bottle one-handed and slicking his fingers up, unwilling to give up Jim’s mouth even for the couple seconds it would take to do this properly. He chafes his fingers together to warm them, then brings them back to Jim’s spread ass, rubs at the slippery-wet clench of him in exploratory little circles.

Jim shivers above him, rocking back into the touch and then down against Leonard’s cock. “Yeah,” he sighs. He sucks on Leonard’s bottom lip, licks and bites at it, like he just might eat him alive if he’s kept waiting too long. “Want you so bad. Need you, Bones, please.”

Leonard groans, his cock jerking almost painfully against the hot frantic slide of Jim’s. “Hold your horses,” he mutters into Jim’s mouth, just barely dipping in a single fingertip to tug and tease at his rim. He’s not about to just take Jim at his word that he’s ready, and truth be told, he’s kinda put out that Jim did this without him, especially when it’s been so long.

He lays two fingers flat across Jim’s hole, firm steady pressure, still not breaching him, and Jim whines pitifully in response. “ _Bones._ You’re killing me.” He kisses a messy path over to Leonard’s ear, no doubt to try his luck with more begging. Nothing like a hard cock and an empty ass to help him find his manners. “Please, Bones. I need you. _Fuck_ me.”

“In a minute,” Leonard says, and interrupts Jim’s protest by sliding two fingers straight into him, all the way to the knuckle in one smooth stroke.

Jim moans in his ear, a hot shocked little sound. He clenches up around Leonard’s fingers, squeezing at him so fiercely that Leonard’s cock throbs in anticipation. “ _Oh_ , god. That’s – ”

Leonard drags his fingers almost all the way out, twisting his wrist as he goes, and then pushes back inside. Jim’s tolerably well slicked up, and maybe slightly looser than he’d normally be at this point, but it’s obvious he only did the bare minimum to prepare himself. No surprise there. He’s an impatient bastard, and – 

“ _Ah!_ ”

– he always has liked Leonard’s hands better.

“There you go,” Leonard murmurs, stroking leisurely over Jim’s prostate while Jim writhes on top of him, already so worked up that even the lightest touch runs through him like a current. “That’s what you’re really after, ain’t it, darlin’?”

Jim answers him with a wordless, guttural groan, beyond speech for the moment as Leonard’s fingertips massage nice and easy over that swollen little gland. His cock twitches and strains between them, wet at the head where it glances off Leonard’s belly. “Bones,” he finally manages to gasp out. “ _Bones._ ”

Leonard kisses the side of his face, nuzzling at his stubbly hot-flushed cheek. “Mmm, I know. Been a while, huh? You must’ve been dyin’ for it.”

Jim whimpers real nice for him then, tucks in against his neck and mouths mindlessly at his skin, a dead giveaway that he’s given up trying to control himself. The nerve of him, thinking he could browbeat Leonard into skipping over this part. Leonard could do this all goddamn _night_. There are few things in this whole god-forsaken universe he likes better than pleasuring Jim this way, working him over like Jim swears up and down no one else ever has, drunk on Jim’s unrestrained overwhelming _need_ for him.

And the _sounds_ he makes – Jesus. He’s good and noisy now, pouring out a litany of moans and encouragement and sweet, hitching cries that go straight to Leonard’s aching cock.

“More,” he begs, driving his hips back into the thrust of Leonard’s fingers, “more, please, I’m ready, _please_ – ”

Since he asked so nicely, Leonard obliges him. He leaves off torturing Jim’s prostate for now in favor of opening him up the way he wants, twisting three fingers into him and spreading them wide.

Jim takes it beautifully, as he always does, his body yielding so naturally to whatever Leonard gives him. He fucks himself back on Leonard’s fingers, babbles praise in his ear, and then Leonard thumbs at him where he’s stretched slick-tight and he clenches up _hard_ and pants out, “Stop, stop – ”

Leonard stops immediately, stilling his fingers. “All right?” He doesn’t think Jim’s hurting, not with the way he’s holding himself, but he has to check.

Jim laughs breathlessly. “All right. More than.” He tilts Leonard’s face up and kisses him, sloppy with eagerness. “I’m like three seconds away from coming all over myself, and I _really_ want your cock inside me first.”

He presents a compelling case. Leonard might normally play with him a bit more, but tonight he relents and eases his fingers out without complaint. It _has_ been a while. Jim’s not the only one who’s been counting down the days for this.

Leonard hurriedly slicks his cock with a couple quick pulls of his wet hand, then grabs hold of Jim’s hips as Jim kneels up and positions himself. Oh, yeah, it was a good call to keep the lights on. He considers turning them up even brighter, but it’s kinda nice like this, dim and cozy, soft around the edges. They’ve had more than enough of the spotlight this past week. It’s a relief to be back home in the quiet of a familiar bed, just the two of them, finding their way more by touch than by sight.

Jim reaches behind him to steady Leonard’s cock, which throbs at the touch, pulsing against the familiar curl of his fingers. Jim makes an approving little noise, trails up to tease around the edge of Leonard’s foreskin, and Leonard digs his fingertips into the taut muscle of Jim’s ass and says tightly, “That’s about enough of that.”

Jim traces delicately along the slit of Leonard’s cock, just enough pressure that Leonard imagines he can feel each individual whorl of Jim’s fingerprint dragging over his hypersensitive nerve endings. “Says who?”

“Says _me_ , you – ” He chokes on his words as Jim strokes over his frenulum, sending a sharp searing stab of pleasure right into his balls. “ _Christ._ You wanna get fucked or not?”

“In a minute,” Jim sing-songs, and Leonard tosses his head back into the pillow with a groan. He should’ve known that would come back to bite him.

Jim had better be as close as he claims, because Leonard already knows he’s not going to last long. It’s all he can do to keep control of himself when Jim finally decides to stop messing around and get down to business, thighs splayed obscenely wide over Leonard’s hips as he sinks down onto his cock, taking him inside in one long, slow slide.

Leonard cusses a blue streak in his own head as Jim’s ass settles flush against his pelvis. He’d do it out loud if he had the breath for it, but the hot, wet, tight, _perfect_ fit of Jim’s body has squeezed out every last gasp of air from his lungs.

For his part, Jim does not seem to be having the same problem. “Fuck,” he breathes, his head falling back, exposing the beautiful line of his throat. “ _Bones_.” He rotates his hips, not rising up any, just exploring the feel of Leonard’s cock inside him, and Leonard shuts his eyes and grits his teeth against the riptide of heat that threatens to yank him under right then and there.

Oh, but Jim doesn’t like that, of course. It’s not long before Leonard feels him lean forward, the movement of his body tugging and dragging dangerously at Leonard’s cock. He plants a hand on the pillow next to Leonard’s head to hold himself up, and caresses Leonard’s cheek with the other, thumbing over his lips until Leonard opens his eyes to meet Jim’s dark, hungry gaze. He doesn’t have to say a thing. Leonard knows what he wants.

The man does love an audience.

Leonard kisses the pad of Jim’s thumb, a wordless answer to a wordless request, and Jim smiles, pleased. He presses down on Leonard’s bottom lip for a second, and then his hand relocates from Leonard’s face to his shoulder, bracing himself as he finally starts to move.

It doesn’t take him long to hit his stride, unhurried but steady, easing himself up and down the length of Leonard’s cock with fluid, powerful rolls of his hips. Lord, but he’s gorgeous like this, rising and falling in an effortless, undulating rhythm that’s mesmerizing to watch – like he was _made_ to move this way, loving Leonard with his whole body, taking what he needs and giving Leonard everything he wants and more, always so much more.

“Everythin’ feel okay?” Leonard asks, because he just can’t fucking help himself.

Jim lets out a noise that’s somewhere between a laugh and a moan. “ _Yes_ , Bones.” His gluteal muscles flex deliberately under Leonard’s hands. “You can scan me after if you really want. But if you make me get off your dick right now, I may cry.”

“Well now, can’t have that.” Leonard strokes appreciatively all over Jim’s ass and hips, smoothing around in front to tease at the sensitive joins of his thighs. “Feels like ’s all in workin' order. Why don’t you get back to showin’ me how healed up you are, and we can skip the scan later, hmm?”

Jim dips down to kiss him, simultaneously grinding back on him with an artful twist of his hips, making them both moan. “Deal.”

Jim gradually picks up the pace, his breath quickening, his thighs starting to tremble into each lift and descent. He’s moving with purpose now, driving them both toward the finish, his cock dripping fat beads of pre-come onto Leonard’s belly. He can’t quite keep his eyes open; they keep slipping shut, dark lashes fluttering down against his cheeks for longer and longer moments at a stretch. He’s close, real close, but Leonard might be just a bit closer, and that won’t do at all. It’s been much too long since he’s gotten to feel Jim come on his cock. He’ll be damned if he misses out on it now.

He wraps his hand around Jim’s cock, gives him a couple of the firm twisting strokes he likes to bring him off, and Jim whines and shivers and, unexpectedly, shakes his head. He tugs at Leonard’s wrist, urging him away. “No, oh, fuck, I – I’m gonna – ”

_Jesus._ That’s not a trick he can pull off very often, but when he does –

Leonard’s hips jerk at the thought, driving up hard into the hot clench of Jim’s ass, and Jim cries out, his mouth falling open round and wanton. “ _Bones_ – ”

“Yeah?” Leonard’s only too happy to comply, but he needs confirmation before he goes for it. The last thing he wants is to throw Jim off his rhythm when he’s so close.

“Yeah,” Jim moans, his fingers digging bruises into Leonard’s shoulder. “Fuck, just – just – ”

So Leonard risks another thrust, yanking Jim’s hips down into it, and Jim just about screams for him, demands another and another and another until suddenly he’s seizing up inside and out, curling forward as he clamps down shuddery-tight around Leonard’s cock, working it ruthlessly against that spot that’s got him spilling hot little stripes on Leonard’s belly.

Leonard’s so damn close, he’s right there, any second now, and then Jim gets a hand between them, drags his fingers through the mess and puts them to Leonard’s lips and that’s it, Leonard is _gone_ , Jim’s come salt-bitter on his tongue, Jim’s ass throbbing tight around him, Jim’s low wrecked voice breathing filth in his ear as he comes and comes into the slick pulsing heat of his body.

He regains his senses some indeterminate time later – seconds? hours? – and muzzily realizes that part of the reason he’s so winded is because Jim has collapsed down onto his chest, heavy and sweaty, probably smearing come all over them both. Leonard somehow musters the strength to get his arms up around him, and they lie there together for a good long while, panting like a couple of race horses.

“Holy shit,” Jim mumbles into his neck.

“Lordy. You ain’t kiddin’.” Leonard pets down Jim’s sweat-slick back, gives his ass one last appreciative squeeze. “Maybe I should make you wait for it more often.”

Jim groans, and this time it’s definitely not a good sound. “Don’t even joke about that.” He finally wriggles himself free of Leonard’s softening cock and slides halfheartedly off to the side, his leg still draped across Leonard’s thighs, lazy and boneless as he always is in the afterglow. He’d fall asleep just like this if Leonard let him, come and sweat and lube and all.

Leonard, of course, has no intention of letting him. He jostles Jim’s limp body around so he can reach the nightstand, snags a couple wipes from the top drawer and gets to work cleaning the worst of the mess from their chests and stomachs, their cocks, Jim’s ass and thighs.

Jim is grudgingly cooperative, allowing himself to be shifted and manhandled with only the occasional grumble of discontent, but his patience is finite. As soon as he decides Leonard’s done, he snatches the wipe out of Leonard’s hand and tosses it aside, then wrangles him onto his back again and takes up his former position, his head on Leonard’s shoulder, his arm flung heavily over Leonard’s clean-enough chest.

Leonard reaches up to stroke that leaden arm, smiling at the little contented sigh it gets him. He almost feels bad for choosing this moment to strike. _Almost_. “So. You wanna tell the crew.”

Jim’s arm goes tense beneath his hand. Jim’s everything goes tense, in fact, though he does a half-decent job of forcing himself to relax the next instant. “If you want,” he says in a tone of studied indifference that sharpens into a yelp when Leonard pinches the inside of his elbow. “Ow! What was that for?”

“Computer, lights at seventy-five percent.”

As soon as the lights come up, Leonard realizes he may have made a tactical error. Feeling Jim’s lax, sated body against his is one thing; seeing it in all its debauched glory is another matter entirely. He drags his gaze up to Jim’s face, trying to concentrate on his frowning red-lipped mouth, his pretty pleasure-hazed eyes blinking against the sudden brightness, and oh, to hell with it.

“What’re you – ” Jim squawks in surprise as Leonard rolls them over, seizing Jim’s face with both hands to keep him still while he kisses him silly.

That goddamn fucking _mouth_ of his. It’s always getting one or the other of them into trouble.

Leonard sinks a hand into Jim’s tousled hair and yanks his head to the side so he can suck a couple marks of his own onto the column of Jim’s throat, Jim gasping and squirming like a landed fish beneath him, clutching at his shoulders. “This is – not at all where I saw that going, but whatever gets your engine running, I guess – ”

Leonard gives one last parting bite to Jim’s neck and props himself up on an elbow to stare down at him with his best No Bullshit look. “You want to tell the crew,” he repeats.

“If – ” Leonard clamps his thumb and forefinger over a pinch of flesh under Jim’s ribs, raising his eyebrows, and Jim quickly changes course. “Okay, fine – _yes_. Yes, I want to tell the crew.”

Leonard releases his warning grip and presses a kiss to the threatened skin in reward before lying down at Jim’s side. “And you couldn’t have _talked_ to me about it instead of dragging me out to play house in front of a bunch of strangers?”

“I was _going_ to,” Jim says, sounding defensive, as he rolls over to face Leonard properly. “I just – I don’t know, it never felt like the right time. There was always something else we had to worry about. And then we were on Hearth and I was trying to figure out how to bring you down and the Mother asked about my family and it just…seemed like a sign, I guess.”

Leonard can see how it might have, though he doesn’t much like the implication that Jim’s been keeping this secret from him for a while now. “How long’ve you been sitting on this?”

“Not too long,” Jim says, kind of evasively. He captures Leonard’s hand before it can pinch him again, pinning it securely against his own chest for safekeeping. “ _Stop_ that, asshole. I’m talking, aren’t I?”

Leonard concedes that he is.

“It’s not like I’ve been, like, _yearning_ for it or anything. Maybe I thought about it every once in a while, but it never really seemed worth the trouble. And then, uh.” He chews on his lip, catches himself almost immediately and stops, but it’s too late – Leonard’s on to him. Whatever it is he’s fixing to say, he’s worried about Leonard’s reaction.

“And then what?” Leonard prods, not ungently. “Go on and spit it out, kid. Ain’t gonna do either of us much good fermenting in that head of yours any longer.”

Jim flattens Leonard’s hand against his chest, pressing it down over his sternum. “Dwaa,” he says quietly. “During the evac, when you were…when I, uh…” He bites his lip again. “You wouldn’t kiss me.”

Leonard’s heart stutters, his mind flooding with images he’s spent two months trying to forget: the blood-dark mess of Jim’s pelvis, the unnatural splay of his legs, his blue-tinged lips, the massive ever-expanding thundercloud of hemorrhage displayed in stark relief on the tricorder screen, that clammy white hand reaching up all weak and trembly –

Jim grabs Leonard’s chin in a firm grip, forcing him to meet his eyes. “Stop. I’m not trying to – you wanted me to explain, so I’m explaining, okay?” Leonard nods numbly, and Jim’s hand slips down to his shoulder, cupping his deltoid with a gentle squeeze. “It just…it hurt so fucking bad, and you looked so _scared_ , and all I wanted was to kiss you so you wouldn’t look like that anymore, and – and because maybe I wouldn’t get another chance. And you turned away.”

He did. He hated himself for it, for rejecting Jim at his most vulnerable, but he did it anyway, turned his face away and guided Jim’s hand down and pressed the sedative hypo to his neck to put him under – because Jim was going to live, he was going to _make_ him live, and he didn’t want him to regret something he wouldn’t have consciously chosen to do, a spur-of-the-moment impulse that only seemed like a good idea because he was out of his mind with pain and shock.

He did kiss him later, the first chance he got, finally alone at Jim’s bedside after a grueling twenty-six hour marathon in the OR. It felt all wrong, Jim’s lips dry and unresponsive under his, and he swallowed back his tears and laid his hand against Jim’s cool, pale cheek and kissed him again, because Jim was going to live, he was, but in the meantime he was deaf and blind in an induced coma and Leonard didn’t know how else to tell him that he was there, that he loved him, that he was sorry.

“I’m sorry,” he says aloud now, heartsick at the thought of Jim holding onto the hurt of that rejection all this time.

“Don’t be,” Jim says. “It wasn’t your fault. I put you in an impossible position, and you handled it the best you could.” He rubs his thumb under the ridge of Leonard’s clavicle. “After I woke up, though, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Just…how stupid it was that we were even in that situation. It’s been _years_ , and here we are still sneaking around like we’re having a fucking affair or something. Like we’re doing something wrong. And that’s bullshit. I’ve never done anything more right in my entire life.” His hand drifts down to rest on Leonard’s chest. “I hate feeling like you’re some dirty little secret. I’m _proud_ of this. Of us.”

Leonard brushes a few wayward strands of hair out of Jim’s wide, earnest eyes. “Me too,” he says softly. It’s not enough – big flowery speeches are Jim’s thing, not his – but he has to try, at least. Jim deserves that much.

“I’m sorry about Hearth,” Jim says, with an expression of such rare genuine remorse that Leonard can’t even pretend to be pissed at him anymore. “I shouldn’t have sprung it on you without talking first. That was shitty of me, and it wasn’t fair to you.” He sighs. “I’m just tired of hiding, you know? It made sense to keep it quiet when we were still figuring things out, but we’re way past that now. And I mean, we’re – we’re good, aren’t we? Solid?”

Leonard runs his fingers through Jim’s hair, palms the back of his head and draws him into a kiss. “Yeah, kid,” he murmurs against Jim’s lips. He kisses up Jim’s cheek to his temple, across the arch of his eyebrow, down his nose and back to his mouth, which is smiling now, so he smiles too, warmed by Jim’s happiness. “I’d say we’re solid, all right.”

He kisses Jim slowly then, pouring his heart into it: his certainty, his gratitude, the tangled-up ache of his love that he still struggles to put words to, even after all these years. And Jim – beautiful, crazy, paradoxical Jim – he gets it, like he always does. Because that’s how it works when you fall in love with your best friend.

Jim eases back after a while and rests their foreheads together, gazing searchingly into Leonard’s eyes. “Is it okay with you? Telling everyone? Because I won’t if you don’t want to. We don’t have to do this now. Or…or ever.”

Leonard smiles again, equal parts touched and amused by the offer. He wants whatever Jim wants, whatever will make him happiest, but it’s kinda sweet of Jim to pretend otherwise. “Ain’t exactly a Federation secret that you’ve got me wrapped around your little finger, _Captain_. Guess it can’t hurt to let ’em know I’m at least getting laid out of it.”

Jim laughs out loud, skates his hand down Leonard’s side and grabs at his ass. “You sure are,” he purrs, and rolls his whole long body up against Leonard’s in what would be a hell of an invitation if they hadn’t both come their brains out about fifteen minutes ago.

“None of that, now,” Leonard says with a groan, shuddering at the feel of skin and coarse hair against oversensitized nerves. “Recovery time’s not what it used to be. I’m almost forty, you know.”

Jim gives him the same unimpressed look that line always provokes. “You’ve been saying that for years. Since you were _my_ age, practically.”

“And it’s truer every day, ain’t it?”

Leonard shifts onto his back again, and Jim clambers over top of him, settling down between Leonard’s legs with his upper body blanketing Leonard’s pelvis and belly, his head pillowed on Leonard’s chest. It’s a position that ought to be hell on Leonard’s almost-forty back and hips, but they’ve fallen asleep this way more than once, and they both generally wake up none the worse for wear. Another of Jim’s mysterious tricks, Leonard supposes.

In his more sentimental moments, he’s had the thought that maybe his body just loves Jim as unconditionally as he does, that it’ll humor his every whim, surrender to whatever treatment he cares to dish out, because it recognizes this bossy, heavy, demanding lunatic as part of itself – his untethered heart set loose in the world, wandering around out there and finding its way into all kinds of trouble, but always returning to him at the end of it, a little battered maybe, but still beating, still whole and strong and _his_.

He should probably share that thought with Jim at some point. It’s sappy as shit, and Jim will tease him mercilessly for it, but he’ll love it.

Not tonight, though. There’s one last thing that’s been nagging at Leonard, and he may as well get it off his chest now and be done with the whole mess. He cards through Jim’s hair, mulling over the best way to put this. “Jim, that…that story you told the Council, our first day down. You didn’t really… I mean, you were just…” He trails off, not quite sure how to translate his niggling discomfort into words.

As usual, though, Jim is two steps ahead of him. “I wasn’t tragically pining for you for seven years, if that’s what you’re asking.” He turns his head to meet Leonard’s eyes and arches an amused eyebrow. “You really think I could’ve kept that shit to myself that whole time? I wasn’t exactly a model of restraint and self-control in those days.”

“Unlike now,” Leonard says wryly.

“ _Forty-two days_ , Bones. That’s about, oh, forty-one point nine seven days longer than you’d have gotten out of me back then.”

“Fair enough.” Leonard tugs gently at his hair. “So?”

Jim folds his hands together on top of Leonard’s chest and props his chin on them, gazing up at him with a thoughtful expression. “I liked you,” he says simply. “Right away, from the minute you sat down next to me on the shuttle. That part was true. You weren’t like anyone I’d met before. I liked that. You seemed more…I don’t know, _real_ , I guess. I just had a feeling about you.” He grins. “Even after you puked on me.”

Leonard grimaces. “I can’t believe you told them that.”

“I can’t believe you thought there was a chance in hell I _wouldn’t_.” Jim pats Leonard’s chest consolingly. “I’ve thrown up on you like a thousand times since then. Pretty sure we’re more than even on that count. Remember Ulawk III?”

Leonard gags a little just thinking about it. “Let’s move on, shall we?”

Jim shrugs agreeably. “I don’t know, what more can I say? I liked you. I wanted to be your friend. I wanted you to want to be _my_ friend. You definitely didn’t make it easy on me, but you didn’t tell me to fuck off, either, so I figured I’d just keep at it until you did.”

“Lord, you were a pest,” Leonard says, thinking back on those early days at the Academy. “Like a damn mosquito, always _bzz bzz bzz_ right when I thought the coast was clear.” He brings his fingers together and taps them against Jim’s ear, punctuating the thought.

Jim scrunches his nose at each tap, though he doesn’t bother extracting one of his own hands to bat Leonard’s away. “Honestly? I didn’t really expect it to work. Mostly I think I was just waiting for you to get sick of me, tell me to get lost.” _Like everyone else_ , he doesn’t say, but Leonard hears it anyway, and it makes his heart hurt again. He’s loved Jim so wholly and for so long that it’s incomprehensible to him to think he was the first, that no one else in all those twenty-two years looked at Jim and realized how goddamn lucky they were to have crossed his path. “But you didn’t. And after you tracked me down in the library during finals, I knew you never would. I knew I’d been right about you.”

That uneasy feeling is back, turning over nauseously in Leonard’s belly. “Jim, I didn’t…”

“No, I know,” Jim says. “It wasn’t like that. I know it didn’t mean anything to you. That’s the _point_. You didn’t think anything of it. You’re always doing shit like that, so for you it was just another day. You didn’t even remember until I told the Councilors, did you?”

“No,” Leonard admits, feeling vaguely guilty, like he’d forgotten an important anniversary or something. That week in the library obviously meant a lot to Jim; how could he not have recognized that?

“Stop,” Jim says again, so Leonard stops, abandons that train of thought right on the tracks and focuses instead on Jim’s eyes, the anchoring weight of his body. “You’re not allowed to spin this into something bad. It’s one of my favorite things about you – it always has been. There’s a reason I latched onto _you_ , you know. I just…I don’t think you get how different you are from other people, Bones.” Leonard scoffs, and Jim flicks his chest in reproach, his eyebrows drawing together in a little frown. “Don’t do that. I’m serious. The way you give so much of yourself, the way you put yourself last, the way you always patched me up even and took care of me even when you were mad at me… Hell, how about the way you’ve obviously been stressing out over this all week, because it bugs you to think that you might’ve been hurting me without knowing it. That you could’ve gone so long without noticing I needed something from you.”

Leonard squirms a bit. “Maybe a little.”

“Duh.” Jim taps his fingers against Leonard’s chest, counting out a rapid nonsensical tempo. “I know you don’t believe me, but you’re stuck with me, so I’m just going to keep telling you. You, Doctor Leonard Horatio McCoy – you are really something special.”

Leonard can’t help crinkling his nose, even as he’s skimming his knuckles down Jim’s cheek in a thankful caress. “That just sounds wrong.”

Jim grins. “ _Bones_ ,” he says, drawing it out so his lips purse up all round and pouty, begging to be kissed. “I told you you’d get used to it.”

Leonard can’t reach Jim’s mouth with his own from here, so he settles for tracing the soft curves of his lips with two fingertips. “You also told me you could absolutely, no question sweet-talk Uhura into telling you her name. And that you just needed one more shot with your friend Cupcake to prove you could kick his ass, even after he’d already handed you yours about a half dozen times.”

“Okay, that one was _sort_ of true,” Jim says. “I put him down when he got possessed by that _klordak_ , remember?”

“He _broke your jaw_.”

“After which he obligingly passed out a few seconds into my sleeper hold. Good man, Lieutenant Hendorff.” Only Jim could speak so fondly of a day that ended with him spitting teeth into an emesis basin. “Point taken, though. God, I was a mess back then, wasn’t I? I don’t know how you didn’t kill me. Or just let Hendorff finish the job, I guess.”

“Oh, I considered it. Many a time.” Leonard scratches lightly at Jim’s scalp. “But you were my mess.”

“True,” Jim agrees, nudging into the scritch like the spoiled-rotten former stray he is. He rests his cheek on his folded hands, peering sideways up at Leonard with a considering expression. “Maybe I _was_ in love with you, a little bit, even then. But how the hell was I supposed to realize that? I didn’t know my ass from a hole in the ground when it came to emotional shit – _you_ know that. I never thought about you that way, not consciously, at least. I just knew I wanted to keep you.” He taps his fingertips against Leonard’s chest again. “The rest of it didn’t click until later. And you already know that part.”

Leonard does know that part. He tugs at Jim’s hair again anyway. “Remind me.”

Jim’s eyes crinkle up in a smile. “You threw me a birthday party,” he says, in the same soft, nostalgic tone Leonard remembers from the Kindred’s audience hall. He kisses Leonard’s chest, a sweet lingering little thing. “And then you ripped me a new one for not telling you about the vice-admiral position.” Another kiss, higher up on Leonard’s chest. “And then I kissed you…” Another, on his clavicle this time. “…and you kissed me back…” His throat. “…and you made me promise to always bring you with me…” His chin. “…and then…”

Leonard wets his lips, buzzing with the anticipation of having Jim hovering so close over him. “Mmm hmm?”

Jim kisses his jaw, his cheek, each of his laugh lines, and finally his mouth, humming in satisfaction at the warm welcome he receives. “And then we fucked like crazy for about two weeks straight.” He delivers one last noisy kiss to the side of Leonard’s nose and flops back down on top of him, looking mightily pleased with himself. “And then we lived happily ever after.”

Leonard pokes Jim’s cheek. “Think you might’ve left out a few plot points there, kid.”

“I got the important stuff.” Jim play-frowns at him, feigning offense. “What, you don’t think it’s as good as the other story?”

“Better,” Leonard says honestly, humoring him, though admittedly also humoring himself. Funny how often those two overlap these days. “Much better.” He traces a fingertip around the shell of Jim’s ear. “So we’re really doing this, then. Telling folks.”

“Looks that way.” Jim chews on his lip again. “You can still change your mind.”

“No, you’re right. It’s time. It’s _been_ time.” He tweaks Jim’s ear. “All right, out with it – what’s the plan? I know you must already have some kind of plot cooking.”

“Well…” Jim begins, and oh, lord, there is a whole singularity of trouble packed into that one lonesome syllable.

“We could just _tell_ them,” Leonard says, knowing damn well he’s wasting his breath.

“Ah, c’mon, Bones,” Jim says with a grin. “Where’s the fun in that?”

+

“Tell me again why I have to tag along on your completely unnecessary daily visit to the bridge?” Christine asks, examining her nails in a show of boredom as the turbolift hums around them. “You may have time for these pointless errands, but some of us have patients to care for, you know.”

“I didn’t tell you the first time,” Leonard says shortly. “And you didn’t seem so worried about your patient load when I was beaming down to Hearth last week. Oh, no, you just _had_ to come with me then.”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t pointless. The point was to laugh at you and enjoy your public embarrassment. I thought that was obvious.”

Jim may have a point about Christine. Leonard really does let her get away with murder.

“Remind me to put you on lancing duty the next time we get an outbreak of Murunese pox,” he mutters as the doors slide open on the bridge.

By pure unhappy coincidence, Spock is standing at the data screen nearest to the lift. He tilts his head slightly, looking decidedly unsurprised by their arrival. “Doctor. Nurse Chapel.”

Jim’s head pokes around the side of the command chair. “Bones!” he says brightly. “And Chapel. It’s been a while. You’re not here to make me do more PT, are you? Because as much fun as it was to suffer at your inexplicably cold hands, your boss already gave me the all-clear.”

“Come up to see the old ball and chain, Doctor?” Scotty asks, shooting him a grin from where he’s leaning over the navigation console next to Chekov.

“I’d have thought you’d be sick of him by now,” says Sulu. “Wait – is this Stockholm syndrome? Or, like, some kind of blackmail situation? Blink twice if you need help.”

“Now, Sulu, don’t be rude,” Aaronson chides. “I for one think it’s refreshing to see a divorced couple making an effort to keep things civil for the sake of the kids.”

Leonard is still going to kill every last of them. But that can wait. He has something more important to do now.

He strides over to the command chair, where Jim is waiting for him with the most screamingly self-satisfied expression he’s ever seen. He tries to block out the dozens of curious eyes watching his progress and focus only on Jim’s, which are bright and clear and so utterly _sure_ that Leonard can’t help but feel sure too.

_Don’t overthink it_ , he tells himself. _It’s just Jim._ It’s just Jim, his best friend, the love of his life, the sun he orbits around, the man he’s promised to love and cherish and follow into all manner of idiocy until death do them part (and quite possibly for a while after that, if history is any indication).

He doesn’t give himself time to hesitate. As soon as he reaches Jim, he leans down over him, cradles his jaw with one hand, tilts his face up at just the right angle and kisses him full on his smug, smirking mouth.

It’s neither quick nor especially innocent, and yet once again Leonard feels it rattle through him like an earthquake, shivering through his joints, shifting the ground beneath his feet. He tightens his grip on Jim’s jaw, just a little, to steady himself.

There’s no going back from this. But maybe that’s okay. Just because you’ve always done things a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the right way.

Change can be a good thing.

Leonard reluctantly breaks the kiss and rests his forehead against Jim’s, taking a moment’s solace in the brilliant fluorescent blue of his eyes before he has to face their audience.

“There,” he mutters. “Happy now?”

Jim smiles at him, a genuine happy little smile, the kind that gives him eye crinkles. “Very.” He cranes up a fraction, just enough to close the distance and brush their lips together again, and Leonard kisses him back and strokes his smiling cheek and then, finally, straightens up and turns to find every soul on the bridge staring at him with eyes like dinner plates, jaws dropped halfway to the floor.

“What the _fuck_ ,” says Christine.

“Doc, I was just kidding about the Stockholm syndrome thing,” says Sulu, with what sounds like a note of sincere alarm.

“Do we…are the Kindred here or something?” says Aaronson, nervously scanning the perimeter of the bridge. “What is even happening right now?”

“Are you _drugged_?” says Chekov, prompting Christine to surreptitiously pull the tricorder from her belt.

Jim takes Leonard’s hand, twining their fingers together. It’s a little performative, but Leonard’s okay with it, circumstances being what they are. Besides, he understands now that there’s no need to second guess Jim’s intentions.

The real honest-to-God truth is that Jim really does just want to hold his damn hand in public once in a while. Nothing so all-fired mysterious about that.

“No, we’re not drugged,” Jim says. “No, the Kindred aren’t here. And if this is Stockholm syndrome, I think at this point it’s probably too late to reverse it.”

Christine falters where she’s been inching her way toward them, tricorder in hand. “You’re…you’re not actually _together_?” Jim shrugs, grinning, and Christine gawks at him for a moment before turning her accusing eyes on Leonard. “When did _that_ happen?”

“It’s, what, 350, right?” Jim asks, glancing up at Leonard, who refuses to play along. The ten minutes he had to spend regenning bruises this morning are proof enough that Jim knows damn well what the date is. “So that means, let’s see…just a touch under four years.”

“Four _years_ , Captain?” Chekov squeaks.

“Come on, you guys are messing with us, right?” Sulu says, looking around to seek backup from the others. “The captain can’t keep a secret to save his life. No way I’m buying that he’s been hooking up with McCoy for four freaking years and never once let it slip.”

“Ye are a chatty drunk, sir,” Scotty agrees. “I’m with Sulu. Yer having us on.”

“Okay, first of all, rude,” Jim says, frowning at them both. “I’m great at keeping secrets. You just don’t know about any of them, because they’re _secret_. And second of all, of course we haven’t been ‘hooking up’ this whole time.” He drags Leonard’s hand along as he shapes the air quotes. “What are we, teenagers? It’s been four years. We’re _married_.”

The bridge falls so silent you could hear a pin drop – or a comm, like the one that clatters loudly to the floor over by the starboard engineering station. The junior lieutenant responsible scoops it up and immediately returns to typing furiously, probably composing a mass text to half the damn crew.

Christine is gaping at Leonard, her tricorder and scanner clutched to her chest in an attempt to protect them from the same fate as the unfortunate comm. “ _You_ married _Kirk_?” she demands, in the same tone she might respond to Leonard revealing that he’d been nursing a secret opioid addiction or trafficking black market organs in his off hours.

Leonard glares at her, not sure whether he ought to feel more insulted on his own behalf or Jim’s. “Yeah,” he says sharply. “I did.”

“Am I dreaming?” Chekov whispers hesitantly to Scotty. “This cannot be reality, yes?”

“I wish I could tell you, laddie,” Scotty whispers back, placing a supportive hand on Chekov’s shoulder.

“This is insane,” Sulu says. “This is _insane_. How could you _get married_ without telling anyone?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lieutenant, we told lots of people,” Jim says airily, thoroughly enjoying himself now. “We told the clerk at the virtual license office, we told the officiant – though my Ofrosian’s pretty rusty, so who knows how much they actually understood – we told my mom…eventually…”

Leonard stifles a laugh, remembering Winona’s reaction.

“You didn’t invite your own mother to your _wedding_?” Aaronson demands, aghast.

“Wasn’t aware a man needed a permission slip to get hitched,” Leonard says. “Look, I don’t know why you’re all making such a big stinking deal of this. People have been eloping since the dawn of time. It’s not like we invented the concept.”

“Though I would argue we perfected it,” Jim says smugly, with a meaningful squeeze to Leonard’s hand.

They just may have, at that. Leonard would be hard pressed to imagine how that trip could have been improved upon, from the moment Jim plotted their course at the nav console of their borrowed ship while explaining to a sympathetic admin at Command that he was headed off-planet for a family emergency –

(“ _Technically_ true,” as he said at the time, turning off his comm and dropping it with a flourish into the bottom of his bag. “Not my fault they didn’t ask for details.”)

– to the moment they touched back down in Atlanta eight days later, still giddy off the high of their very, _very_ well consummated marriage.

Lord almighty, what a week that was: messing around on every surface of their remote little cottage, lounging lazily in bed every morning until the sun was high in the sky, getting all kinds of creative with the provisions they’d brought, both for meals and for…other activities. (Leonard still can’t get Hegi syrup with his damn waffles in the mess without embarrassing himself.)

Hiking up the mountain to take in the incredible views only they were around to see, Jim’s hand in his enough to banish any lingering fear of heights.

Dragging a pallet up to the roof to lay out in the warm night air under the dense violet-tinged canopy of stars, Jim spinning increasingly fanciful stories about the unimagined wonders that might be hiding in this or that constellation, talking himself hoarse until he dozed off against Leonard’s shoulder or until Leonard took it upon himself to find a better use for that mouth.

Bathing naked in the hot spring, exploring the sweat-beaded pink flush of Jim’s shoulders with his tongue, hauling him into his lap all sleek and slippery with mineral water, his moans echoing off the cave walls –

Leonard clears his throat, furiously trying to push those particular memories out of his mind. “We did all right.”

“If you are really married, why do you not wear rings?” Chekov asks, a note of _aha!_ in his voice, as if this challenge will collapse their whole premise.

“I _have_ a ring,” Leonard says, gesturing to his granddaddy’s silver ring, which he’s been wearing a lot longer than he’s known any of these people. He doesn’t get what’s so hard to understand about this. “The hell do I need another one for? It’d just be one more thing to have to sterilize eighty-three goddamn times a day. And as for this one – ” He wags their joined hands toward Jim. “ – my God, the stupid shit he gets up to, he’d wind up in medbay with a degloving injury every day of the week and twice on Sundays. I don’t have the time.”

Christine pulls a face, apparently accepting that point, while Chekov looks both perplexed and intrigued. Jim tilts his head toward him and stage-whispers, “It’s not at all gross, and you should definitely look it up.”

Leonard cuffs the back of his head. And then lingers there, just for a second, because Jim’s hair is nice and soft, and at this point he’s got no reason not to. He already admitted that he married the idiot; it’s probably safe to acknowledge that he likes him okay.

“So how long has it – have you – ” Aaronson gestures helplessly between them, apparently at a loss for words.

“Been married?” Jim supplies, beaming ear to ear. “Oh, little over a year now.”

“Closer to two,” Leonard says.

Jim frowns. “Shit, really?”

“The doctor is correct, Captain,” Spock interjects from his place at the aft-port data screen, where he’s been quietly working away this whole time. “By Earth’s calendar, it has been one year, eight months, and seventeen days since you received your license.”

For a moment, the bridge is suspended in a taut, ominous silence.

It’s Sulu who breaks it, sounding simultaneously dumbfounded and outraged. “You told _Spock_?”

“Like hell,” Leonard snarls.

Jim lifts his hand in defense against the crew’s accusatory gaze. “Wasn’t me.”

“There was no need for either the captain or the doctor to inform me of their union,” Spock says serenely. “The nature of their relationship is quite easily deduced from circumstantial evidence. They are listed as each other’s emergency contacts and healthcare proxy agents in both the crew manifest and their individual medical records, a point which cannot have escaped your notice, Nurse Chapel.”

“Well, sure,” Christine says, “but I just figured…” She wisely cuts herself off before she can say something like _…the two sad bastards didn’t have anyone else._

Spock raises a politely judgmental eyebrow at her. Leonard has a feeling he’s enjoying this almost as much as Jim. “Furthermore, a simple review of door scan data since the start of this mission reveals that they have spent 98.3 percent of gamma shifts in the same quarters when neither is on duty. In the absence of a more compelling explanation, it would be most illogical to assume any other conclusion than a romantic partnership.” He’s definitely verging on a smirk now as he adds, “Finally, their marriage is a matter of semi-public record, as it is registered in the vital records database which may be accessed by any Federation citizen through the submission of a formal request form, which requires fewer than ten minutes to complete.”

“I think what Mr. Spock is saying,” Jim says gleefully, “is that you guys _really_ need to up your gossip game.”

“Are you all nearly finished?” Uhura asks from her seat at the comms station, where Leonard suddenly realizes she too has been steadily working (or at least pretending to) ever since he walked onto the bridge. “I have several official transmissions to record by the end of shift, and I’d rather not have to waste time editing out the background noise of the entire bridge crew dissecting our captain’s love life.”

Sulu throws his hands in the air. “Holy shit, you knew too? Are you kidding me right now?”

“ _Nyota_ ,” Christine says, pitchy with betrayal. “I understand these three pulling this kind of bullshit, but you? I thought we were _friends_.”

“So how did _you_ find out?” Aaronson asks. “Don’t tell me you just casually decided to do a deep dive on the door scan data too.”

“I know what Commander Spock knows,” Uhura says primly, her eyes fixed determinedly on her console.

“What do you mean you – oh.” Christine makes a face again, looking even more disgusted than she did by the thought of a ring avulsion. “God, am I the _only person_ not married or soul-bonded or consciousness-melded on this whole ship? This is worse than my high school reunion.”

“Lieutenant Uhura, as always, you are a much-needed voice of maturity and reason,” Jim says, earning himself a fleeting little smile, much warmer than the stern tone she took with the crew. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, Leonard suspects those two are going to be indulging in even more frequent drunken gab sessions. He just hopes Jim has the presence of mind not to share anything Leonard would especially hate to make its way to Spock. “Now, as it happens, I have something extremely pressing to attend to down in Engineering, which I expect will take me precisely the thirty minutes you all need to get this out of your systems. I suggest that you utilize this time efficiently. Mr. Spock, you have the conn.”

Spock tilts his head in acknowledgement. “I will endeavor to ensure high productivity in your absence, Captain,” he says, deadpan but for the pointed glance he aims at Leonard.

Jim rises from the command chair and marches off to the turbolift, dragging Leonard behind him. Mercifully, the lift is already waiting when they reach the doors, so it’s only a matter of seconds before the doors are closing behind them – just long enough for Leonard to make out an unidentifiable voice announcing, “They’re gonna make out in there, aren’t they?”

Jim keys in Deck 7 and Deck 19 on the screen and turns to Leonard with a beaming smile. “That went well, don’t you think?”

Leonard blows out a long exhale, feeling like he can finally breathe right for the first time all day. “I’m just glad it’s over. I’ve had about enough of being stared at like a damn zoo animal this past week.” He gives Jim’s hand a squeeze to soften the words, make sure Jim knows he’s not having second thoughts. He _is_ glad they did this. “You’re still planning to bring dinner back, right?”

“Yeah, of course. Your room?”

“Better make it yours. I need a goddamn drink after all this, and you have most of the good shit.” He taps his thumb against Jim’s. “And your sentence may be over, but I want you to get at least one vegetable for yourself. Think of it as knocking a couple charges off your tab.” Jim opens his mouth, and Leonard cuts him off. “Fries do _not_ count.”

“Pizza?” Jim tries hopefully.

“Tomato’s a fruit, kid.” He lets Jim pout for a couple seconds before relenting: “Stick some spinach on top and I’ll allow it.”

Jim grins and leans in to peck a kiss to Leonard’s cheek. “Thanks, hubby.”

“Absolutely not.”

Jim nuzzles him, nudging his nose against Leonard’s cheek. “Thank you, Bones.”

“That’s more like it.” He turns his head and catches Jim’s mouth in a proper kiss, both of them smiling into it.

The turbolift pings as the doors slide open on Deck 7, and Jim lets go of Leonard’s hand and gives him a little push toward the door. “All right, back to work. Go do your genius doctor thing. I’ll see you in a few hours. Don’t start drinking without me, okay? I’ll get tonic and bitters from the mess.” His mouth tilts into a lopsided smirk. “Maybe some Hegi syrup, too.”

Oh, God damn him.

“Fine,” Leonard says gruffly, and promptly makes his exit from the lift before Jim can bedroom-eye him into giving the crew a whole lot more to gossip about.

“Love you!” he hears as the doors are hissing shut behind him, prompting a startled double take from a passing ensign.

Leonard tamps down on his smile and arches an eyebrow at the ensign, who scuttles hastily out of his way with a stammered apology. As he heads down the corridor toward medbay, he hears the clacking of boot heels as she takes off at a dead run.

The news will spread out to every corner of the ship by the end of shift, Leonard knows, but that’s not his problem – at least, not right now. He’s been gawked at quite enough for one day, and he’s not dealing with these knuckleheaded gossipmongers again until tomorrow at the earliest. No, he’s going to finish off his shift and then, assuming Jim can’t manage to find some new catastrophe to hurtle them all into, he’s going to retreat to the captain’s quarters and wait for his husband to arrive with dinner.

They’ll eat together, have a drink or two while talking over the weird, interesting, and frustrating tidbits from their days – although Leonard highly doubts anything will top the past twenty minutes – and then, well, then they’ll most likely get started on putting that Hegi syrup to good use. They do have an awful lot of time to make up for, after all.

It’s always Leonard’s favorite part of any given day. Not because of the sex (though, yes, obviously that tends to be a highlight), but because it’s the time when he and Jim can just _be_ , together, freed from the stresses and expectations of the universe outside their quarters. He lives for that moment every day when he can double-lock the door behind him, take off his uniform, and spend the rest of the night not as Enterprise CMO or Lieutenant Commander or Dr. McCoy or even Leonard, but as Bones – the grouchy cuss who made the best decision of his life by taking a chance on a half-feral stray, the reserved and somewhat oblivious loner who fell in love with a high-spirited motormouth, the sappy old romantic who married his best friend and couldn’t be happier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. So anyway, as I was saying, I just love me a good trope, like “secretly married.”  
> 2\. Me every time I read one of your comments over the past two months, in a tone of steadily increasing hysteria: “Oh my god, they’re gonna KILL ME.”  
> 3\. In my defense, I did warn you upfront that this story was a [palimpsest](https://bit.ly/2ItJqry) – designed to be read first one way, then another.  
> 4\. Even though this has been my plan from the moment I started writing this story, I truly do feel bad for messing with you guys, so I’ve gone ahead and written up Bones and Jim’s _actual_ first time as well. I'll post it in a couple weeks. (Please note that I’ll be calling it a sequel in the summary, since posting an E-rated prequel kind of gives the game away to people who haven’t finished the main story.) That and any other side stories will be posted to [palimpsest verse](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1026591) and on Tumblr under the tag _#palimpsest verse_.  
>  5\. Please don’t kill me.

**Author's Note:**

> Masterpost on [Tumblr](https://fireinmywoods.tumblr.com/post/174057560541/fic-masterpost-palimpsest-complete). Come say hi!


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